Black Bloc: Occupy the Black Bloc! Photo by Adam Editor’s Note: This Tuesday, Feb. 21st, come to the basement at St. Francis at 7PM for a community discussion on the black bloc and the future of Occupy Portland tactics. Had enough of discussions about Black Bloc? No? Good! Because we’re running a three-day series on Black Bloc tactics. Click the Black Bloc Series tag to read the other articles, delving into the controversy currently sparking throughout the Occupy movement and beyond. This article was originally published at Deepecomedy. by Arlo Stone The black bloc quandary is upon us. Hedges ignited a shit storm!
In true anarchist fashion (green anarchy/anarcho-primitivism, thanks. 1) “BlackBloc”; any autonomous cell of one or more PEOPLE for whom property destruction is on the table as a potentiality, given the right circumstances. 2) BlackBloc cannot be purged from Occupy. Thus, my starting points are simple. Don’t do it, young Occupy, only five short months old. Don’t do it. How to Occupy the Black Bloc Better, Hedges? Crime Spiked Downtown During Occupy Portland, Police Say. Remember the debate over whether Occupy Portland increased crime downtown? The Portland Police Bureau hasn't forgotten, and today it released a report (PDF) attempting to demonstrate that crime spiked during the Occupy Portland encampment in Chapman and Lownsdale squares. The report shows 20 crimes were reported in District 850, which includes the squares, during the week of Oct. 2-8, when the encampment began.
(It ran from Oct. 6 through Nov. 13.) During the week of the Nov. 13 eviction, about 63 crimes were reported, more than tripling during those five weeks. The police numbers show crime climbing steadily during the weeks of the encampment. They also shows crime in the area nearby dropping to about 12 incidents the week after the Occupy Portland eviction. Police data from 2009 and 2010, crime this year in the district was considerably higher than in either of the two years past, the report shows. Senior Citizens Occupy, Shut Down Bank Of America. Last week, while most of us tried to wake up from our holiday lethargy, a group of feisty senior citizens were standing to corporate greed and corruption. KCBS San Francisco reports that a dozen senior citizens calling themselves “the wild old women” succeeded in closing a Bank of America branch in Bernal Heights on Thursday. The dubious lending and foreclosure practices used by Bank of America caused it to become a favorite target of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as a catalyst for the wildly successful Bank Transfer Day in early November, 2011.
There was also a massive public outcry when BoA attempted to instate a $5/month fee for use of their debit cards. The bank later canceled this policy. Toting walkers and wheelchairs, the “wild old women” certainly weren’t the most rambunctious group to fight for the interests of the 99%, but they did cause the branch to close and lock its doors, much to the protesters’ surprise.
Related Reading: Bank Of America Gets Foreclosed. Mayor Adams' Statement on Occupy Portland. Why #OccupyWallStreet? Three Answers from DC Douglas. After massive marches throughout NYC, Occupy Wall Street occupies the Brooklyn Bridge. Looks like Mayor Bloomberg's apparent plan to squash the Occupy Wall Street movement by evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park earlier this week only added fuel to the fire. This morning, occupiers swarmed into Wall Street by the thousands, effectively blocking access to the financial center. And at the time of this blog post, by various estimates some 20 to 30 thousand people are marching on to the Brooklyn Bridge footpath—not the roadway, so far. All this just hours after the mayor mockingly predicted at a press conference that tomorrow's newspaper headlines would be about how few protesters bothered to show up (less than a thousand, as he said? Maybe in your dreams, mayor.) Tim of "The Other 99%" (who deserves a Pulitzer for his amazing ongoing coverage, AFAIAC) has two live video streams: one, two.
The local FOX affiliate has a helicopter above, with truly dramatic aerial views of the massive march. Live stream here. The projection starts, "MIC CHECK. " Occupy Portland: Image of Portland police pepper spraying protester goes viral. View full sizeRandy Rasmussen/The OregonianA police officer deployed pepper spray at Southwest Yamhill Street, between the JP Morgan Chase bank and Pioneer Courthouse Square. The photo was taken from the southeast corner of the square, looking toward the intersection of 6th and Yamhill after a day of marching through downtown Portland, Ore., by Occupy Portland participants. People gathered on the east side of the Steel bridge earlier in the morning to demonstrate in support of the Occupy movement, on the day known as N17. Several people were arrested and the march continued over the lower span of the bridge into downtown, where a rally was planned.
Later in the day people were arrested in a Wells Fargo branch downtown. The web is flooded with images and news of tense moments between Portland police and N17 protesters on Thursday but perhaps none is getting more attention this morning than one of a Portland police officer firing pepper spray directly into one woman's face. "... The Moment When the Police Lost the Occupy Portland Narrative. Well, it turned. The police bureau is starting to crack after six weeks of Occupy Portland. And one picture, right here, crystallizes the precise moment when it happened. During a choreographed effort to pull a few dozen protesters out of the Chase bank branch outside Pioneer Square, part of today's hundreds-strong N17 day of action, Portland police officers resorted to a decidedly more muscular show of force in a clash watched by TV cameras and rush-hour commuters. Suddenly all the fun—the dance parties, the union songs, the peaceful arrests earlier on the Steel Bridge and at Wells Fargo—was for naught.
Tromping in with mounted officers, they pushed marchers who had gathered on the sidewalks along SW Yamhill into the street—forcing them to block MAX trains, something no one was doing until the heavily armored riot squad showed up—and then poked and, for the first time, pepper-sprayed the marchers. The goal was really to keep the roads clear, as the mayor tweeted? Occupy Wall Street: Vendetta Masks Become Symbol Of The Movement.
By TAMARA LUSH AND VERENA DOBNIK, The Associated Press NEW YORK — Look at a photo or news clip from around the world of Occupy protesters and you'll likely spot a handful of people wearing masks of a cartoon-like man with a pointy beard, closed-mouth smile and mysterious eyes. The mask is a stylized version of Guy Fawkes, an Englishman who tried to bomb the British Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605. Scroll down for photos of the Vendetta mask at protests around the world. "They're very meaningful masks," said Alexandra Ricciardelli, who was rolling cigarettes on a table outside her tent in New York's Zuccotti Park two days before the anniversary of Fawkes' failed bombing attempt. "It's not about bombing anything; it's about being anonymous – and peaceful.
" To the 20-year-old from Keyport, New Jersey, the Fawkes mask "is about being against The Man – the power that keeps you down. " "You can seize hold of it for any political purpose you want," he said. "I had 10 here yesterday, and I sold out! " Footage of Scott Olsen being shot by Police at Occupy Oakland. Occupy protesters rally around wounded veteran. OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Veering around police barricades, anti-Wall Street protesters held a late-night march through Oakland streets, a day after one of their number — an Iraq War veteran — was left in critical condition with a fractured skull following a clash with police. The show of force in Oakland along with SWAT arrests in Atlanta have sent chills among some anti-Wall Street demonstrators.
But another showdown between police and protesters in Oakland appeared to be averted late Wednesday night as several hundred filed out of a plaza declared off-limits for overnight use and marched through nearby streets. An AP photographer on the scene said police erected barricades to prevent the marchers from reaching a freeway, sending the group down side streets en masse. Small contingents of officers could be seen following behind but there were no signs of any confrontations or arrests. The march tapered off after about an hour, with most of the protesters apparently dispersing.