unThanksgiving, Alcatraz Island

Hopped out of bed at 3:33am Thursday and prepared to meet a friend, Smadar, at 4:30am for the drive to Pier 33. It was dark, damp, and drizzling when we reached the Embarcadero. Judging by the limited parking, many more people than we expected were heading to Alcatraz and the Sunrise Ceremony. 
It was still dark and the rain still fell when, about 45 minutes later - car stowed safely at Art Academy parking lot - we joined the by-now much longer line of people waiting to purchase tickets, then waiting for a ferry to Alcatraz.
An hour later we were still there...in the rain...waiting for a ferry; by now the sky was much lighter and both Smadar and I were wet through. Clearly we'd missed the sun rising - it was light when we finally landed on Alcatraz but we caught the last dance...and found some tobacco to throw into the sacred fire with thousands of others.
The Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony, aka unThanksgiving Day has been held annually on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay since 1975. It honors and promotes the rights of indigenous peoples of the Americas and also honors the 1969 protest when Alcatraz-Red Power Movement (ARPM) occupied the island.

Dancers...

Dancing in the sacred circle.

Detail of head-dress...

Looking toward San Francisco

Skeletons of the past against the morning sky.

(All photos, above, Susan Galleymore, Nov 24, 2011.)


Listen to audio: Clyde Bellecourt on Alcatraz 2011

Other photographs, same day, different photographer(s).

The Council of Elders stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street

 Occupy Oakland may be down but it ain't out... We had our own Council of Elders meet last night. Here's an overview vid of some of them..
The Council of Elders stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.

(And, sorry for the embedded Google Ads...but, what else can a girl do to scratch together enough $$s to live in this day and age?)

A Month in the Life of Occupy

General Strike, Port of Oakland, November 2
Estimates of the crowd size run from 20,000 to 30,000 (SF Chronicle)

Below: Oakland City Council meets to discuss Councilmember Nadel's resolution to Support Occupy Oakland. More than 140 members of the public spoke, the vast majority FOR support. The City Council delayed the decision...then Mayor Quan ordered the encampment removed.

Raising Sand Radio Audio clip from speakers at Oakland City Council meeting after the first, violent attack by police on Occupy Oakland encampment,

Day after police removed Occupy Oakland for the second time, Occupy supporters convene at Oakland Public Library to strategize.

November 16, actions by students from UC campuses in Berkeley, Davis, and Santa Cruz  discourage UC Regents from meeting.

Above: Snow Park, Occupy Oakland.

November 19, Preparing to march before occupying private park on 19th and Telegraph, Oakland.
Anticipating re-occupation of Ogawa/Grant Plaza, city workers run sprinklers full time to keep the ground too soggy for tents.

Undeterred, Occupiers create a vegetable garden to one side of plaza.

• On Sunday afternoon, Police, private security & DPW workers destroyed the garden planted in Oscar Grant Plaza during the Saturday Day of Action

More info regarding the attack on Occupy Oakland’s new community garden from the gardening working group:

We wanted to thank every person for their support and presence yesterday at the garden party. It felt so amazing to see all of your faces and to see the motivation! We wanted to write an email to you this evening telling you the garden was still up. A member went to the plaza around 2pm this afternoon and the garden was still looking beautiful! We were very excited to send out the email tonight with that in mind, however, we returned to the garden at 4pm this afternoon to find city workers and police throwing all the veggie starts, dirt and planter boxes into a dump truck.
There were members of the community already present who moved all the potted plants away from the scene, so those were saved. A few members sat next to the remaining box, so we saved those starts too. Some people tried to talk to the police during and after the truck left, and NO officer was willing to speak on behalf of the disrespectful decisions the city made.
Read more >>

Occupy San Francisco at Justin Herman Plaza the night before police clean out the encampment.

Occupy San Francisco, Justin Herman Plaza

(all photos Susan Galleymore's cell.)

Exposing Cultural Myths at Occupy Oakland

Published in CounterPunch, Nov 15, as "Re-Occupy, ASAP": Exposing Cultural Myths at Occupy Oakland
And in Truthout, Nov 16.

What a welcome relief the Occupy movement’s trend of “leaderless” groups! True, this seemingly contradictory concept is difficult to absorb in a culture the promotes a leadership style that models the strongest, loudest, most persistent, and most vocal monopolizing the microphone – both physical and its cultural equivalent.

But, as Americans know well, repeat something often enough and it becomes part of the cultural vernacular. So, despite the difficulty politicians, media, and many Americans have in grasping this new paradigm, Occupy movements across the country continue as leaderless groups.

After the Oakland camp’s most recent tossing by police word-of-mouth convened about 1,000 people at the main library to strategize. Then they marched the four blocks back to City Hall for the 6 p.m. General Assembly.

There are refreshing and humorous moments at GAs when a random person from the crowd hops the line of speakers, commandeers the mic, and rambles on about the CIA commanding “us all through the fillings in our teeth”, that we’re at the “end times”, or that aliens are watching from outer space and waiting to invade. Then, the mic is retrieved, gently, and GA business continues.

Last night, the group reiterated its commitment to non-violence; anyone unable or unwilling to practice non-violence will be escorted, gently, from the group. It also consensually agreed that Saturday, November 19 is the next major gathering in Oakland for those aching for a different system of governance, society, and relationship to one another.

These peaceful and informal GAs belie the myths perpetuated by local government and the media about epidemics of violence at Occupy sites.

Then again, the movement is exposing other cultural myths and morality tales for what they are, too: formulae for shaming generations of wage-earners into silent compliance.

Presidential hopeful Herman Cain recently reiterated a classic:  “If you're not rich, don't blame Wall St, blame yourself.”

Variations on the theme include:

The rich have what they have because they “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps”.

“God” shows His approval of the righteously hard-working by endowing them with material wealth.

The unemployed have given up or are too lazy to seek jobs.

“The American Dream” is there for the taking by anyone willing to work for it  

Education ensures success.

The planet is a treasure trove of natural resources for bold risk-takers to tap.  

Indeed, even the myth that police maintain social order for business is evaporating in the face of reality.

Jesse Smith lives in downtown Oakland and, at first, he was skeptical of the Occupy movement’s manifestation in his neighborhood. After he reconnoitered, talked with Occupiers, and understood that they echoed his grievances about our country’s direction, he joined the camp's business liaison group.

Yesterday, he stood in the sunshine at the police barricades erected after the police raid early that morning and explained that the business liaison group had surveyed some 100 businesses in a 2 block radius around City Hall.

“We collected data that no one else seems to have: around one third of the business owners report neutral impact on their business by the occupation; another third, owners of convenience stores and pizza joints, report a positive impact – business has gone up; the rest, places negatively impacted, are the attractive retail outlets that tend to be chain stores.”

Most business owners note that the police actions are “the only detriment that they experience to their bottom line.” They say their vendors call and ask them, ‘Is it safe to come to downtown Oakland?’ There's an impression outside of Oakland that there's been a need for a constant police line and that raids and violent police actions are imminent. This, if anything, is what is killing commerce here.”

Dorothy King is the owner of the sixty-year-old Oakland-based family business Everett and Jones barbeque.

“People say small business owners in Oakland suffer because people don’t spend money here. No, if the small business owners who live and work in Oakland suffer it is because the big banks take our money out of our community and do not invest in our city.”

In the sunshine, a protester near Jesse Smith patrolled the police barricades behind which municipal workers picked up debris from the for-now demolished encampment. One side of the sign he carried urged, “Mayor Quan, City Council, how about a little imagination?” The other side read, “Re-Occupy asap.”

Judging by how the majority of people conduct themselves in Oakland these days, peacefully and with determination, it is only a matter of time before the latter comes true. 

(Photos: Susan Galleymore, Nov 14, 2011)

Slideshow of Occupy Oakland, San Francisco, and Alameda

Here are slides from Occupy Oakland, San Francisco, and Alameda from last couple of weeks

Communicating via People Pedal Power

One single bicycle – and many pedaling people -- powers Occupy San Francisco’s media center: three laptops, a handful of cell phones, and wi-fi hotspots.

It is fitting that, on the day when as many of five thousand protested outside Wells Fargo Bank, something as simple, sustainable, and ubiquitous as a bicycle video-streamed and communicated the goings-on to the rest of the country and the world.

This people pedal power demystifies electricity and sends a hopeful message: if one bicycle and a few batteries enable world-wide communication how dependent are We the People on centralized coal and nuclear power plants?

People pedal power encourages the person in the street intuitively to grasp an emergent urban story: each of us is capable of creating decentralized solutions that still allow us to run our beloved electronic equipment. Perhaps we really can outwit and work around the corporations and financial institutions at the heart of OWS movement’s dissatisfaction.

There’s nothing special about the bicycle that was donated by Bay Area business Rock the Bike. It is stationary and rigged to stand about six inches from the ground. When pedaled, the spinning rear wheel, attached to a small motor, transmits people power to a “box” that is connected to a battery…that is connected to inverters… that plug into equipment that requires 12 volts, or 115 AC, or even 5 volts for cell phones.

Kames Cox-Geraghty, one of the Occupiers working on a laptop on Market Street near the Embarcadero BART station, said, “Right now these things are definitely basic but we're getting there; we have people who really want to help build the system who come down here to advise us.”

Earlier in the occupation, the encampment had a generator but police stated organizers needed to apply for a permit from the fire department. According to police, however, the encampment had “too many personal items lying around that constitute a fire hazard” and it was unlikely to be granted a permit. 

“So, at the moment,” Cox-Geraghty explained in a recent Raising Sand Radio interview, “we don't have backup. Instead, we have somebody on the bike almost 24/7. It's an intense system; we go for maybe five minutes without it, then we do a big shout out, ‘I'm done. Who wants to go next?’”

The shout out, also known as the “human microphone,” is another example of a work-around that has become common at occupation sites where “necessity is the mother of invention.” Activist/author Naomi Klein and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Sizizek are among the speakers who have popularized this ingenious urban call and response system that obviates the need to apply for a permit for sound amplifying equipment. Speakers break sentences into staccato sound bites that members of the audience repeat and pass through the crowd. It works for immediate needs – recruiting cyclists to generate pedal power – and it also works to educate and connect the dots between the OWS movement and world events.

One such moment occurred at Occupy San Francisco when someone shouted, “How many… American deaths…. in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

A response popped up and was amplified through the crowd, “About nine thousand.” (A number that includes military contractors killed.)

Then another voice shouted, “What about… the deaths… of people not American?”

There was no answer to that but that the question was asked raises awareness about the terrible swath of war beyond America borders. (The answer? Approximately one-and-a-half million Iraqis. Afghans? Unclear; the American military doesn’t “do body counts”.)

A longtime activist, Francis Coombs, said, “When the husks of the old world fall away we will see that new growth has already taken root.”

The world-wide Occupy movement shows all the signs of new growth taking root as engaged human beings collaborate to create renewable people power.

Yes, for Ecuador! Or, Confessions of a Fired Chevron Contractor

(Came across this anonymous article and want to share it to spread the support for Ecuador's cleanup)
By “Supa Strika”

A resounding cheer for the US appeals court that ruled Chevron cannot escape an $18 billion fine on behalf of Amazonian residents for the corporation’s massive pollution of the rain forest. Needless to say, Chevron will appeal the decision; it has been doing so for 18 years. If it manages to crawl out from under this fine it will not be for lack of effort by activists who keep the spotlight on Chevron for this and other practices that damage the environment and the communities that depend upon it.
I was a Chevron subcontractor during George Bush’s second term and there were many mornings I’d honk and wave to friends as I drove to work while they protested corporate polices at the gates of Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon, California.
My first day on the job coincided with the Bush junior’s re-election. It was impossible to miss the expressions of corporate jubilation in the hallways, break rooms, and offices that day; someone wrote “WAR” and drew a smiley face on the whiteboard in my office too.
Over two years, I successfully implemented a global website located in a building east of CVX headquarters. My job performance was good enough that, on completion of that project, I was offered another in corporate headquarters – one floor below then-CEO “Dave” O'Reilly where I rubbed elbows with Chevron’s corporate publicists and marketing mavens.
A first responsibility was to put a “lighter, brighter face” on the public website Chevron devotes to explaining its side of the Ecuador story.  My foreboding about my new role was matched by that then-dark and dreary site branded with Texaco’s black and red palette. Moreover, it was populated with self-serving legal rhetoric about why Chevron was blameless in the horrors wreaked by oil spills and lax environmental controls in Ecuador’s forests and on its people.
It was difficult to pretend to enjoy my work or that I had much in common with my colleagues. As a life-long social justice activist I was aware of corporate malfeasance around the globe and I was not good at keeping my emotions hidden. Moreover, my only son was serving in the US Army – to my mind the element used to project US might in foreign lands and safeguard oil fields for corporations like Chevron. (Eventually, my son was honorably discharged after serving one tour of duty in Afghanistan and two in Iraq.)
I was fired within three months. Had I been a true believer I’d have fired someone displaying my attitude too. For example, meeting with the marketing team in 2006 about Chevron's strategy to be beat Proposition 87 – the Clean Alternative Energy Act – I quipped that Chevron create a marketing campaign to promote a new gas standard: instead of “miles-to-the-gallon” it use “number-of-dead-Iraqis-to–the-gallon”. (Chevron contributed over $34 million to “No on 87” – and won: that Clean Alternative Energy Act failed.)

My experience convinced me that corporations like Chevron act like a cults. There’s the isolation: believers do not mix with “non-believers”; isolation ensures believing members do not doubt or question the corporate mission or the corporation’s role in his/her life.
For days prior to protesters arriving at the gate for a permitted protest, employees and contractors were sent emails decrying the action, warnings about traffic congestion and frustrations, and offering assurances about personal safety that implied protesters were intrinsically violent people.  (Actually, the majority of left activist groups espouse and practice non-violence as a matter of course.)
Corporations pay (or donate?) decent salaries that allow members to entertain themselves shopping, consuming, and keeping up with the Joneses. The threat of being cut off from the corporate tit is terrifying and employees obey and believe corporate messaging -- in Chevron’s case, “Human Energy” – even when faced with conflicting evidence.
In 2005, the ChevronToxico Campaign for Justice in Ecuador somehow convinced the management of Mudd’s Restaurant, right across the street from Chevron Headquarters, to  exhibit “Crude Reflections: ChevronTexaco's Rainforest Legacy”. This series of 50 photographs documented the human and environmental impact of what experts believe is the worst oil-related environmental disaster on the planet. Few, if any, Chevron employees attended.

Who is Supa Strika?
I have never hidden from my activist friends that I contracted with Chevron…or any corporation. Indeed, I believe that those of us who espouse “left” ideologies ought to work in corporations at least once. Then, when we denigrate corporations’ activities around the globe, we also understand how the mindset operates at home, how employees’ minds are colonized by fear: fear of losing their jobs, fear of knowing, and fear of speaking the truth in meetings. Fear keeps publicists and marketing mavens churning out campaign messages that white- or green-wash corporate misdeeds too. 
I chose Supa Strika as my pseudonym partly because I am fearful: being known for criticizing the corporate-hand-that-feeds does not put bread on my table. (I’ve been unemployed for more two years as it is!)
Additionally, Supa Strika is a wildly popular comic series in Africa, South America and Asia Pacific that features a fictional soccer team -- all brown-skinned -- that sports Chevron’s Caltex- and Texaco-branded jerseys. I grew up in South Africa so I know that the vast majority of soccer-crazy South African children cannot afford real soccer balls; they improvise by stuffing plastic bags that litter the streets into other plastic bags until they form something hard enough to kick. Instead of Caltex- and Texaco-branded jerseys they wear rags.
Ironically, Supa Strika editions originate in the very office I worked in at Chevron headquarters where employees churn out and distribute thousands of these colorful and well-executed comics to hoodwink children. Indeed, Chevron has taken global sponsorships to a whole new level with an innovative animated version of Supa Strika for television. Chevron reports that this “extends beyond traditional sports sponsorship and results in significant brand recognition.”
But, activists can, and do, fight back. We expose these companies’ internal workings and understand what keeps employees enthralled; then we support decisions like that of the recent appeals court.
What’s our message? Corporations like Chevron might hide for 18 years or more but they will not escape their fines.
In other words, activists re-frame and re-apply Human Energy. 

(Another unhappy but resolutely outspoken member of the fallen-from-corporate-grace.)