Author: Slingshot Collective

Oakland Neighborhood Associations Sell Out with ‘Community Policing’

Organized neighborhood groups—representing a small handful of voices—say they speak for all of Oakland as they advocate bringing police, the gun-wielding arms of the state, deeper into the fabric of the city. Couched in euphemistic ‘community policing’ advocacy, pro-cop citizen lobbying groups are pushing for an initiative in the November elections to add 120 more cops to the Oakland PD—after lobbying against a March initiative that would have added only 30 new cops.

Increasing cop presence does nothing to address people’s fears, because cops respond only to their own agenda, which features fear and disempowerment as primary tactics for keeping people ‘in line’. Fortunately, viable models exist for grassroots community patrols that increase neighborhood safety outside of the police-state web. We can look to examples from the Black Panthers to countless neighborhood ‘Pink Shirt’ patrols, to formulate a forward-looking response to the repressed, uncreative pro-cop drivel that serves the state so well.

Who’s calling for more cops? Despite the countless creative ways that people are organized and active in their communities, it’s the picket-fence ‘neighborhood groups’—the North Oakland Voters Association, the North Lake Neighbors Association, etc.—which have a direct line to the Oakland City Council and the Oakland Police Dept. Frequently representing a minute cross-section of a neighborhood’s diversity, neighborhood groups provide the police with cover—in the form of willing complaints from a ‘respectable’ organization of Neighbors—to bust nuisance activities. Not surprisingly, this is one active front on the class war, with nuisances including everything from pesky recycling thieves and noisy nightclubs, to drug dealing, to more destructive acts lumped under the misshapen headline Gang Violence.

Recent enactment of nuisance eviction legislation makes community policing particularly deadly. Landlords are now empowered to evict tenants for being a ‘nuisance’ to the neighborhood—having loud parties, lots of people loitering around a house, unkept yards, etc. For parolees, nuisance evictions are criminalized to count as a second or third strike. Not surprisingly, the police are using this tool to place parolees under even more intense scrutiny.

Quite obviously, the system of cops, courts, and prisons is not stopping the violence that seems part-and-parcel of Oakland neighborhood life. Making rules does not suddenly transform or stop a situation; punishments are not solutions. Of course, the behaviors that cops pretend to want to address are what they are making their money on. The cops’ goal is to have more cops, not to work themselves out of a job. A framework of tickets, fines, and parole guidelines, spiraling upwards into the roar of the ghettobird helicopter, is merely an excuse for not addressing the life/death situation at hand: People are driven, even encouraged, to break the law—whether by committing acts insane or petty—in order to survive.

The basic purpose of police, of course, is not to promote general citizen well-being, but to maintain the basic power dynamics in our society. Their suspicion-driven concept of community safety means harassing into line anybody who does not fit into a very narrow window of appropriate behavior. Fortunately, the police (state) does not have unlimited resources, and this is where ‘community policing’ fits in, a bizarre euphemism for making us do their dirty work, co-opting folks’ legitimate desires for safety. Report drug deals! Call in suspicious characters! Take a stand—call the police! Conversely, community policing implies that we’re bad neighbors, bad citizens, inclined to criminality ourselves if we don’t rat on the bad people down the street.

When something serious happens, the police response is based squarely in the culture of violence that bred the disaster in the first place. People in gangs, people committing ‘crimes’, are just that—people, who amidst the media-glitzed thug life might be looking for a surrogate family and a sense of belonging. ‘Gang members’ are stereotypically inflated into inhuman violence machines to breed fear, resentment, and disempowerment in everybody. It takes a lot to rip out somebody’s heart, but the police state actively encourages a culture of violence, between uncontrollable cop violence, the cop mentality itself, the prison plantation system. If everybody—the people in gangs, the people afraid of them, the people who only see them on TV—were empowered, we would not be in this situation.

We are stuck in this cycle—but we don’t have to be. There are viable models for the real security and safety that comes from knowing you can deal with situations in your neighborhood without calling in another violent gang, the cops. The response to community policing is anti-cop, pro-people community patrols, of which there is a rich, varied history. Some groups, like the Black Panthers and CopWatch, have focused on patrolling the police themselves, establishing community control of the police instead of letting the police control the community. Countless other groups work on the pink shirt/lavender shirt model, frequently used to support queer folx, with people going out in small groups to provide a visible safety alternative to the police. The Mujeres Libres, in Condega, Nicaragua, are a group of women who provide support in domestic violence situations, confronting perpetrators at work to make sure violence does not continue at home. The Nation of Islam has a network of security forces in cities around the US who provide security in situations where real cops or rent-a-cops would normally be used. Girl Army and other self-defense outlets emphasize personal empowerment over reliance on outside forces.

As we work to fit models to meet our own community’s needs, there are a number of questions we can consider. To what degree is violence or nonviolence useful in community patrols? Where is the line between a community patrol and vigilantism? How do we effect personal and community empowerment without becoming goons? Can we do the work to make community patrols ensure everybody’s safety and welcome in a neighborhood, instead of sliding into the exclusion of certain people based on the same tired norms that currently plague us? Can we outsmart the cop mindgame and see drug dealing for what it is, itself a non-violent business transaction? Can we encourage a culture of harm reduction instead of self destruction?

Grassroots community organizing is rarely simple. There is no substitute for knowing and respecting our neighbors, all of them. Chatting with 5-10 people within our comfort zone does not negate the need to build bridges with people who seem very different than us, but live only a few houses away. Fortunately, community patrols have a rich and varied history that makes them a practical focus for grassroots organizing. They’re a good action-oriented response to liberal impotence: “I worked the schools, I volunteered at the rec center, and they’re still dealing across the street!”

Community patrols encourage people to be active on the very streets they’re fearful of, the streets they travel every day. They have the potential to effect both direct improvements in people’s lives, and structural change within the system, by challenging the power and relevance of the police. In neighborhoods as diverse as Oakland’s, radical organizing around community safety has the potential to address the culture of violence that perpetuates homicides, the undertone of racism and classism that sustains complaints about noisy nightclubs and recycling thieves, and control of the police state in our lives. We can call out community policing as bullshit, because the path to a viable alternative is clear.

For those hoping to limit the American empire’s power and violence, the outcome of the war on Iraq has in some ways been a very good thing. The attempt at unilateral American military intervention has been a disaster for America’s rulers. Despite all of the United States’ vast military might, America has been unable to win militarily against a determined, lightly armed local insurgency. All the firepower, armor, airplanes, missiles and high tech gadgets are ultimately a false form of power — the war against Iraq has exposed this for all to see.

In practice, the ability to kill on a mass industrial scale cannot bring control. This capacity can only bring death, which is far removed from control over a population. Each additional Iraqi civilian cut down by American guns hurts American control over Iraq’s population and breeds more resistance, more seething anger, more hands clutching RPG launchers and planting roadside bombs.

In order for an empire like America — and the global capitalist system which America’s rulers serve — to profit from military aggression, global capitalism needs to acquire economic opportunities after the war — open markets, cheap labor for its corporations, raw materials. You won’t hear anyone talking about it, but the main reason that US rulers want to crush the insurgency in Iraq is not so our hand-picked Iraqi overlords can have a peaceful day on which to hold elections, but so the world’s corporations can start making profitable investments in Iraq. Investment and trade only work in a context of stability. The American imperial military can kill thousands of Iraqis, but it is powerless to create stability — an environment where workers go happily to their jobs to serve their corporate economic masters. The US military hasn’t even been very good at protecting oil extraction from Iraq, which should have been the easiest and most basic form of post-war economic looting.

By alienating the Iraqi population with repeated instances of clumsy brutality — shooting up and invading mosques, bombing wedding parties, torturing naked Iraqi prisoners — the American occupation has all but ensured that if Iraqis finally are permitted to go to the polls, they will elect representatives hostile to American imperial interests, if not a radical Islamic state.

US military planners had hoped to establish numerous permanent military bases in Iraq as a launching pad for further aggression in the Middle East. But after a year of occupation, American troops have their hands full just protecting their own asses, leaving little time to consider further invasions of Iran or Syria.

Given the failure to achieve any perceptible post-invasion imperial goals, the deaths of 11,000 Iraqis and over 800 American soldiers must be seeming a bit “unfortunate” even to the fanatical US regime.

Although Bush tries not to care, the whole situation has been made far worse because he ignored and offended all of America’s capitalist allies with his unilateralism. The US military weakness exposed by the war on Iraq has also shattered the political theory behind efforts like the Project for the New American Century — that as the only super-power left standing, the US could further increase its power by freely using all that military might, without taking into account the views of all those pesky allies.

In fact, using American military power has made the US empire politically weaker in the eyes of the world, not stronger. The US may be the only super-power left standing, but that coin has two sides. Either it means every other country will be scared and compliant, or it sets the stage for other global political blocks to unite to take down the biggest bully on the block.

Given all that the war on Iraq has revealed, we can hope the American imperial masters won’t try anything like this pointless, unilateral military adventure again anytime soon. It is also a bonus that the US military is tied down in Iraq for the time being. The world outside Iraq has rarely been safer from US military terrorism than it is at the moment.

The War at Home

Anti-authoritarians in the belly of the beast here in the US still have a special and crucial role to play in working to limit American imperial power and if possible, destabilize US military and economic might. The key continues to be adopting a diversity of tactics and maintaining flexibility to hit the weak spots at crucial moments. Given the astonishing failures of the war on Iraq, it is curious that domestic expressions of opposition to the war and the occupation have been so flaccid up to this point.

A year ago, during the build up to the war against Iraq, millions of people in the US and abroad poured into the streets to protest the war, but as the occupation has floundered, there have only been a handful of smallish protests led by sectarian groups. Predictably, the Democratic party has failed to criticize the war and occupation. Thus, there has been an odd vacuum of opposition to one of the hugest recent examples of US imperial arrogance and violence.

Perhaps for many, the daily bad news from Iraq (and Israel and the environment and so many other sources) has caused something like “atrocity fatigue” — events have gotten so bad that we’ve become paralyzed. Like a deer caught in the headlights of an on-coming truck, those who could be marching within the US to denounce its disastrous occupation have felt frozen, unable to fight back.

While millions of Americans undoubtedly oppose the occupation and its abuses, private, invisible opposition does nothing to limit US imperial power and turn the political tide against the militarists. People outside the US are left to conclude that most Americans support or are indifferent to the occupation — the torture, the killing, the suspension of press freedom, the stifling of Iraqi political opposition — because all official US voices from Bush to the Democrats have basically supported the occupation. People within the US who privately oppose the occupation or are developing serious questions about its wisdom feel isolated because all media and political voices seem to either support the occupation or just want to make minor reforms so it can be kinder and gentler.

Imagine how differently events like the prison scandal or the ever-climbing body count would look in the context of a vigorous, public opposition movement to the occupation and the militaristic, imperial policies that led to the occupation. Not just an occasional large protest in San Francisco led by a sectarian group, but numerous small and large acts of resistance across the nation occurring every day, every week.

Such visible and public opposition would change the political climate in Iraq, in the world, and in the US. In Iraq, protests would encourage resistance from US soldiers who have concluded that the war is just another disastrous mistake. The war in Vietnam finally became impossible when US troops refused to fight. Even John Kerry, when he was much younger, asked “Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Indeed.

The Iraqi population would be emboldened to continue resisting the occupation. It is crucial for everyone to understand that regular people in Iraq and regular people in the US have precisely the same enemy — the killers in power in the United States.

Around the world, a strong and visible resistance movement in the US would further degrade the power of the US rulers. Why should populations in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia fear the US empire when that empire is threatened by chaos in the streets at home?

What we need is a way to organize frequent, public resistance to events in a more timely and more heart-felt fashion. The establishment left is a big part of the problem. They have poured all their resources into rare, centralized, stage-managed protests in major cit
ies which are transparently weak, ritualistic and socially isolated.

What is needed is a way to go around the establishment left — which didn’t organize anything while pictures of Iraqis subject to torture flashed on TV screens for weeks — and empower grassroots people everywhere. Building informal, decentralized, autonomous networks in towns big and small across the country is the only effective way to maintain a constant swarm of visible resistance activity.

In Berkeley in the 1980s, I remember a tradition called a BART alert. When folks learned of an outrageous event — say the recent attack on holy sites in Najaf or the recent prisoner torture photographs — someone would phone up the local radio station to declare a BART alert. (BART is the local subway system, and there is a station in downtown.) The station would broadcast calls for the BART alert all day, and maybe some flyers would quickly go up around town. There were phone trees that would be activated — you would call 3 people, they would call 3 people, and so on, reaching a few hundred people in a couple of hours.

At 6 p.m. (always the same time) everyone would meet at BART, there would be a few quick speeches on a bullhorn, and then a march through town which often seemed to end up at the ROTC office on campus or some other suitable symbol of the US imperial monster. It being Berkeley, sometimes windows would get smashed, etc., but the effectiveness of the action didn’t really depend on that kind of thing, although it sure was satisfying.

These protests were great because they were very spontaneous, they took hardly any organizational resources or time, required no city permits or dependence on sectarian groups, and they kept opposition timely, heart-felt, grass-roots, and visible.

What if people around the country set up similar systems for calling small protests quickly? Instead of a sectarian group calling a protest ever 2-3 months in San Francisco and Washington DC, you would have protests going on all over the place every week. Sure, a lot of them would be small. 50 people in Madison, Wisconsin. 35 people in Middletown, Conn. 15 people in Houston. But small protests break the paralysis of inaction. Protests that start small get bigger. People get empowered to realize that everyone in the US can resist the occupation. A tiny protest in Iowa City can mean a lot more — and is harder to dismiss — than a much bigger protest in San Francisco.

Having a constant storm of decentralized, smaller acts of resistance will emphasize a diversity of tactics. The point will be doing something public rather than just sitting at home — isolated and powerless in private. At this crucial stage of history — when the American empire is especially vulnerable — now is the time to seize any opportunity available to say “this occupation is unacceptable and we’re not going to stand idly by.”

Slingshot is a quarterly, independent, radical newspaper published in the East Bay since 1988.

This issue is coming out as we prepare for the big Biotech action in San Francisco. It also looks like the entire Slingshot collective will be on the streets in New York City for the Republican National Convention. As busy as we get with the paper and the Organizer, it is crucial to remember that it is not enough to write what should be done, or think what should be done — you have to put your body on the line and do what needs to be done.

This issue, we bought our first typewriter and have been wondering why we waited so long to acquire this essential piece of lower-tech. So many radical publications suffer from a computer influenced sterility — how do you expect to reject the master’s ideas when you spend your days tied down by the master’s technology — staring into a fuckin computer?

Another exciting part of creating this issue was how the collective felt more bonded and caring. A number of us are going through various life difficulties, and we took better care of each other on a personal level instead of just suppressing our personal sides so we could pour 110% into the struggle. This way of operating is more human, more sustainable, and ultimately allows us to be more effective.

We wanted to apologize for omitting prison artist Harvey Pritchard’s name from his awesome artwork that was in last issue on page 3. Write him at Harvey Pritchard P-25785, PBSP SHU, C7-117C, PO Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95532.

And speaking of art, Holi told me an amazing story about the cover art he made. It is of the view out of the house he lived in growing up in Indonesia. The Evil Industry (not owned by Indonesians) put up those buildings in the rice fields, 10 ft away from houses, and said they would only be warehouses — but then started production in them and shook the whole village 24 hours a day!! So Holi’s dad made some slingshots to give to all the kids and other people got out their tools and the whole town attacked the factories for 3 days, breaking the roofs and machinery until the factories stopped production and became warehouses again. Holi fears they will start production again soon. Fucking Globalization BULLSHIT!

Yeah, so… Slingshot is always on the lookout for writers, artists, editors, photographers, distributors and independent thinkers to help us make this paper. If you send something written, please be open to editorial changes. We are also looking for articles in Spanish or for people who can help us translate articles from English to Spanish.

Editorial decisions are made by the Slingshot collective, but not all the articles reflect the opinions of the collective members. We welcome debate, constructive criticism and discussion.

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting August 14 at 1 p.m. at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below).

Article Deadline and Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 83 by September 18, 2004 at 3 p.m. We expect the next issue out in early October.

Volume 1, Number 82, Circulation 12,000

Printed June 3, 2004

Slingshot Newspaper

Sponsored by Long Haul

3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705

Phone: (510) 540-0751

Star chart

Dear Slingshot:

I finally received my long awaited 2004 Slingshot Organizer from AK Press & despite the fact that it was “contrabanned” by the local prison staff, I was able to execute a clever conspiracy to get my grubby paws on it anyway.

Now as to the point of this letter: I now find myself at a facility located outside any major metropolitan area that provides an unhindered view of the starry night thus creating an opportunity to utilize the star chart included in the Organizer, that is if I knew how to use it. If you could, please send me instruction. I understand the concept of degrees, but I lack the knowledge of a bearing point and how the zodiac is represented in the heavens. Any information and instructions related to this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so very much in advance. I Take care and keep fighting the good fight.

—Colin @anderson #165334, ASPC F-N.U.3, PO Box 8000, Florence, AZ 85232

Orgasms

Dear Slingshot:

Regarding “Orgasms without Obligation” by Molly Coddle (Slingshot #80). Sorry that this letter is so late. In this institutionalized environment, mail is not always reliable so I’m (at last!) reading someone else’s Slingshot. But I wanted to write, even if I’m late for the press, so I can give my appreciation to Molly for her article, her bravery and her outspokenness. It’s not easy to stand up to the repression embedded in our Puritanical culture. Who knows, if people weren’t so repressed, so deprived, if they were actually HAPPY of FREE, maybe we/they wouldn’t succumb to such rampant consumerism, the devastating sense of want (and blame) that eats away our lives as well as depletes the world’s resources . . . maybe we’d find a NEW way?!

This is hardly new news, the “make love not war” generation tried . . . but revolution hasn’t matured yet, and nether have we ripened past spiritual adolescence. Maybe there’s still hope, maybe we won’t have to sink under the pitch black of fascism in order to break free and change.

Publications like Slingshot and articles like Molly’s (and “Seattle’s over dude “ by ISteve) give me hope.

P.S. I am writing this from Texas Death Row, where they have recently decreed that we will no longer even be allowed to have, to hold the naked beauty of humanity close to keep us warm at night — no longer (after June 1) will we be allowed to have nude or partially nude photos of our sweet hearts (were I so lucky!) I would encourage y’all not to forget your brothers and sisters behind these walls. Isolation chills humanity, and can kill humanity, unless you reach out and help.

—Karl Chamberlain #999241 Polunksy Unit, 3872 South FM 350, Livingston, TX 77351.

Bob Black

Dear Slingshot:

While I appreciate much of Bob Black’s writing, allow me to take issue with point number eleven of his theses on the “Anarchist Identity Crisis” (Slingshot #81) in which he states that “self-sacrifice is counter-revolutionary.”

On the contrary, it is conceivable that self-sacrifice could be a necessity in saving a revolutionary movement. For example, someone might have to jump overboard to save a sinking ship which is being chased by a fleet of fascist cyborg zombies. I doubt Bob would have much problem with this act of altruistic self-sacrifice if he was busy bailing and I doubt he would later remember the jumper as untrustworthy. It is the revolutionary altruist whom I would trust more than the egoist — one for all does not necessarily imply all for one. Furthermore, bob’s “disastrous act of benevolence” is a rather banal attempt at oxymoronic humor which, perhaps, betrays his idea. A terminally ill revolutionary could undertake a mission of self-sacrifice without taking anyone with him. And the action could be defended, if not supported, in solidarity.

—Fried Chicken, Rockford, IL

We’re gonna need more than a peace vigil to counter the next wave of the war on terror. Congress is considering reviving the draft, and more of us than ever could be cannon fodder. As says the adage, things could get a lot worse before they get better.

Although alternative media have been talking about the draft since last year, corporate media haven’t uttered a syllable about the twin Senate and House bills waiting in committee for quiet passage. This is an election year, and Congress people know that voters don’t want their kids (or themselves!) killed.

It is shortsighted to believe that the comeback of Selective Service is due to our conquest of Iraq, though certainly it’s related. Plans have been underway since 1999 (before Bush & Co) to revise conscientious objector regulations, and draft boards are, again, being staffed. While we could be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan as peace keepers with automatic weapons, US corporations also need troops to ensure their domination of African, Southeast Asian and South American resources and markets.

Revisions to draft guidelines include the expansion of eligibility to all men and women ages 18-35. To minimize the classism felt so keenly in Vietnam, college students who are drafted will receive only a one semester deferment. Canada has agreed to turn back all potential émigrés thanks to border technology that connects our ID to SSS records. Technology systems like TIA-Total Information Awareness (see slingshot issue 77) will make it difficult for draft dodgers to access bank accounts, sign leases, get public assistance or apply for work. In fact, dodging may effectively make someone an undocumented resident.

Restrictions on conscientious objectors are more stringent than thirty years ago. Fewer people are likely to successfully lobby for alternative service. Maybe the government has learned from Israel, where generals comprise the CO review board and no one ever gets CO status.

The changes in guidelines will draw soldiers from a larger, more representative pool than the overt racism and classism of earlier drafts. As a feminist, I believe that men should not have to fight in wars, not that women deserve the same opportunity for slaughter. How, when we talk about equality, can it mean the equal chance of death, instead of equal opportunity for life? No one should be drafted. Everyone should resist.

Congress doesn’t care about the draft, at least partially, because so few of them have eligible family members. Under old regulations, fewer than 10 members had children eligible for service. Will W be sending his twins to the front line? Or will they, too, join the Texas National Guard and step on base only for dental appointments?

There is no such thing as benign military service. It is impossible to act with dignity while carrying a government issued weapon and following orders. People with genuine intentions travel with medical supplies and 50lb bags of rice, not rocket launchers. The Pentagon lies about the number of soldiers killed and the number of civilians slaughtered. Private contractors die, and are subject to no justice/penal systems because Geneva doesn’t cover them and Iraq has no civil systems. The torture which has plastered newspapers this spring is standard issue, brought over with American prison wardens. We’re more likely to start infecting Iraqis with Hepatitis C (rampant in US prisons) than democracy. The atrocities by civilian and military Americans are further proof that only the conquered are subject to laws and that our national subconscious is still racist and homophobic.

The wars fostered through this draft will only increase the cycle of civil war, arms dealing and natural resource extraction that has been so effectively used to impoverish the “Third World.” The profits of large corporations rest on cheap resources, and illegal profit from the big three markets: arms, drugs and labor (sex or sweatshop). And, we, if we become soldiers, will hold open the doors to their banquet halls.

The return of selective service would make a lot of anarchist lifestyles desirable. Gleaning–using what’s extra–squatting, diy food and clothes, discarding money, encouraging free skool learning and alternative travel all become necessary for anyone avoiding the draft board. Learn for yourself and teach your neighbors.

While the failure of a draft bill would surely make it easier for most of us to avoid death or murder for a while longer, the passage of SSS reinstatement could unify people of all demographics. Grandmothers make great radicals. We need to use this promise of death for American youth as common ground for radicalizing our communities. There is no courage in the mainstream left, but there is lots of room for organizing. We need solidarity against military recruiting in our high schools, against police and prison abuse, against complicit media and for stronger communities.

For “official” info on the draft, visit www.sss.gov. For info on conscientious objectors, visit www.objector.org.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the creation of People’s Park in Berkeley, Calif.

At the start of 1969, the site that is now People’s Park was a dirt parking lot. The university had bought the property for new dorms in the mid-60s but then after demolishing the wood frame houses that had been on the lot (which had, coincidentally, formed a home base for many radicals which the UC Regents wanted out of Berkeley) the university never built the dorms. In the spring of 1969, after it had sat empty for some time and become an eyesore, community members decided to build a park on the lot. Building the park mobilized and energized many of the hippies, street people, activists and regular Berkeley citizens who participated. They were doing something for themselves, not for profit or bosses. Hundreds of people worked hard putting down sod, building a children’s play ground and planting trees. From the beginning the ideal was “user development”–the people building a park for themselves without university approval, planners, etc. Seizing the land from the university for legitimate public use was and is the spirit of the park.

After the initial construction on April 20, negotiations with the university over control of the park continued for about three weeks. For a while it looked like a settlement could be reached but suddenly the university stopped negotiating and in the early morning on May 15 moved police into the park. A rally protesting the fence was quickly organized on Sproul Plaza on the UC campus. In the middle of the rally, after a student leader said “lets go down and take the park,” police turned off the sound system. 6,000 people spontaneously began to march down Telegraph Ave. toward the park. They were met by 250 police with rifles and flack-jackets. Someone opened a fire hydrant. When the police moved into the crowd to shut off the hydrant, some rocks were thrown and the police retaliated by firing tear gas to disperse the crowd. An afternoon of chaos and violence followed. Sheriff’s deputies walked through the streets of Berkeley firing into crowds and at individuals with shotguns. At first they used birdshot but when that ran out, they switched to double-0 buckshot. 128 people were admitted to hospitals that day, mostly with gunshot wounds. James Rector, a spectator on a roof on Telegraph Ave., was shot and died of his wounds a few days later. The day after the shootings, 3000 National Guard troops were sent by then Governor Reagan to occupy Berkeley. A curfew was imposed and a ban on public assembly was put into force. Mass demonstrations continued and were met with teargas and violence by the police. 15 days after the park was fenced, 30,000 people marched peacefully to the park, and active rebellion against the fence subsided. The fence stayed up.

During the summer of 1969 on Bastille day protesters marched from Ho Chi Minh (Willard) park to People’s Park. Organizers had baked wire clippers into loaves of bread and lo and behold–the fence was down. Police attacked and a riot ensued. The fence was rebuilt and didn’t finally come down until 1972. In Early May, President Nixon announced the mining of North Vietnamese ports. The same night as his announcement, a hastily-called candlelight march in Ho Chi-Minh Park, starting with only 200-300 people, grew into thousands as they marched through Berkeley. During the night, people tore down the fence around People’s Park with their bare hands, a police car was burned and skirmishing with police lasted into the wee hours

In 1980, the university put asphalt over the free parking lot at People’s Park to turn it into a Fee parking lot. Students and others occupied the ground and began to rip up the pavement. After a week of confrontations between students and police, the university let the issue drop and the pavement was used to build the garden at the west end of the park. During the late 1980s the university employed a subtle strategy to again try to retake People’s Park. Community efforts to make improvements in the park, such as installing bathrooms, were met with police and bulldozers, while police, through constant harassment elsewhere, forced drug dealers to do their business in the park. These tactics continue today. In 1990 and 1991, the City of Berkeley negotiated a deal with the university to “save the park” by “cleaning it up.” The university agreed not to construct dorms on the land if sports facilities were constructed and the character of the park was changed. By this time, the park was being used to provide services to the growing number of homeless in the Southside area including free meals and a free box for clothes. The park continued to serve as a meeting place for activists and as a forum for political events and free concerts. It became clear that “cleaning up the park” meant eliminating freaks and the homeless. On July 28, 1991, the university again put up a fence at the Park so that it could construct a volleyball court there, part of the “cleanup” plan. During protests that followed, police fired wooden and rubber bullets at fleeing demonstrators every night for 3 nights in a row. Hundreds of police occupied Berkeley. All the while, construction continued on the volleyball courts, which were eventually completed. The Courts stood, despite constant protests and vandalism, from 1991 to 1997, when they were finally removed by the university due to complete non-use. As the Park celebrates its 35th Birthday, volunteers continue “user development” of the Park as they use the wood which once formed the hated volleyball courts to build an entrance trellis to the Park, complete with flowers.

When funders of the spring activist conference for high school students in Petaluma, CA, mandated that presenters represent all points of the political spectrum, two of the student organizers left and made their own gathering. Hosted at the Phoenix Theatre, about 40 people from around the Bay gathered to share and learn skills. Slingshot was there to table and I got to meet lots of great people!

If you’ve never had reason to visit Petaluma, the Phoenix is definitely a high point. Once a playhouse, the space has been gutted (all the floor seats are gone) and repainted with graffiti and murals. Skate ramps line the walls, and angsty, youthful scrawlings cover the bathroom walls. It was, simply, the perfect place to gather punks and other young radicals.

The conference lived up to its location. After a breakfast from Food Not Bombs, the organizers outlined the day and everyone introduced themselves. The crowd was small enough to be personal, but also a good turn out. The day hosted about a dozen workshops on a variety of topics. Presenters came from Berkeley copwatch, Santa Rosa FNB, Project Censored, the local feminist club, gun control supporters, and students against GMO’d food. The knowledge in the crowd collectively was quite impressive. Besides workshops, there were also activist groups tabling and a radical, portable bookstore. I definitely left feeling confident that a few people, a good idea and a little bit of food can bring people together.