Sunday, November 26, 2006

No to this School for Assassins; Why the system produces wars; Free Mumia!

Diablo Valley College Students for a Democratic Society [link]
2006-11-26 "Rise Up" zine from "Frank Little Club" at Diablo Valley College.
Download the full-size zine pages:



Sunday, October 22, 2006

"Victims of Violence: When UC Police Attack"

2006-10-22 text and photos by josh sonnenfeld ( sugarloaf [at] riseup.net ), posted to [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/22/18322461.php]: 
If you've taken a glance at the corporate press' headlines recently, you'd see something like this: "UC Santa Cruz Protest Turns Violent," or, my favorite, "Police Break Up Violent Protest at UC Regents Meeting." The mainstream media blatently suggests that it was the students - the protesters - that were violent. Yet, to have violence you have to have victims. 'cus if nothing or no one was hurt, how can you claim that any crime has been committed?
If you look at Wednesday's (Oct. 18, 2006) protest and all the reports and documentation, you'll see that, in fact, there were victims of violence. The victim wasn't property. The victims weren't the cops (except the one that sprayed himself with his own pepper-spray). The victims weren't the Regents (unless you call really having to pee a form of violence). For the most part, the victims weren't even the corporate visitors (one guy from the Chamber of Commerce claims he got spit on, but that's it). If you were present or if you looked at the documentation, you would see that the victims were, by and large, the protesters.
So.. if violence creates victims, and the victims were mostly protesters, who were the instigators of the violence? The police. This is my argument: that Wednesday's protest was in fact violent, and we should all abhor unjust violence, yet the majority of violence came in the form of pepper-spray in the eyes and batons to the bodies. If we are truly concerned about violence and safety, then we must also be concerned about the police.

Pepper-sprayed: Immediately after police snatched 3 activists, they used their batons to push away nearby protesters, eventually pepper-spraying the crowd.

Water

Friendship

Pepper-Eyes

Here to Help

It Burns

Rinse and Repeat

Hit in the Head by a Baton

Didn't Realize 'til He Saw His Hands

Bleeding

Cement Burn: This is the back of the same guy from above. He was dragged on the ground by cops before he was yanked away by friends.

Eyes Won't Stop Burning

Wrong Place Wrong Time: Like most of those pepper-sprayed, these two just happened to be at the front of the crowd when the cops attacked.

Victims of Violence: Still recovering after being pepper-sprayed, how do you think these two will feel when they find out the corporate press is going to call them the violent ones?

Sentinel photographer was smiling

oh and for the record, the Sentinel's photographer was smiling while he took photos of kids trying to wash the pepper-spray out of their eyes. In fact, the photo on the left is him taking this shot -
"UCSC Protests" gallery photo 4 of 5 from "Santa Cruz Sentinel" [http://www.santacruzphotogallery.com/gallery/protest/ucsc_protest4]: UCSC student Ben Sellers, an exchange student from England, has his eyes washed out after being sprayed by campus police with pepper spray Wednesday, October 18, 2006 as student protesters stormed a building where University of California Regents were meeting.

what's to smile about?
---
"No, the Sentinel photographer was LAUGHING..."
2006-10-26 comment by Dan Coyro:
Yeah, I thought it was hilarious...especially when the protesters egged on the police with profanites, flipped off the police repeatedly in their faces and them pushed up against the police when the police were trying to escort from the meeting hall a Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce director and a Santa Cruz Schools superintendant...then the protesters scream police brutality... I had to chuckle when many of the kids who got pepper sprayed whined for nearly an hour...I got sprayed and kept working while most of those kids laid on the ground wimpering for the cameras.
---
"did you get it straight in the eyes?"
2006-10-26 comment by "I don't think so":
Did you get it right in the eyes though, Dan?
From all the pictures I've seen, you were back a bit. Many of us felt a little sensation if we were in the general area of the pepper spray, but that's very different from being someone in the very front of the crowd getting it STRAIGHT in the eyes. Just look at the first photo posted ...

   
"MY ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED"
2006-10-19 from [pochovilla@yahoo.com], posted "UCSC Protests" gallery photo 4 of 5 [http://www.santacruzphotogallery.com/gallery/protest/ucsc_protest4]:
HUGE march of students and staff (approx 300 people) begins at BayTree Bookstore 2:45-3:15pm - Demonstrators approach building where Regents are supposed to have 15 minute "public comment" period. - Regents hadn't arrived yet, protesters have their own speakout outside for a good 20 minutes before Regents sneak in through back door. This really upsets demonstrators. - Minor shoving matches between police and demonstrators occur at entrance as designated speakers are allowed in. - All of this is videotaped by police and observed by UCSC administrators. - Protesters attempt to negotiate way inside but police demand the IDs of anyone who is to enter, frustration mounts. - With little other recourse, protesters hold hands and form giant circle around building, thereby blocking quick exit of Regents for almost an hour. - Police attempt to push through various exits and escort Regents out numerous times but fail. Students stage sit ins at most exits except for main entrance where they stand instead (big mistake). - Finally, police attempt to blitz the regents out through main entrance. Big ugly scuffle occurs. Police use batons and pepper spray against students who shove back. 3 protestors (2 students, 1 alumni) are grabbed by police and dragged inside building. Standoff ensues. - Other exits remain barricaded with groups of 10-20 people. - Riot police from San Francisco arrive in Stevenson parking lot . - Negotiations for the release of 3 protesters begin - UC Regents want out first. - Agreement is reached shortly before 6pm - UC Regents allowed to leave with police escort, 3 demonstrators are released close to half hour later (7:30pm). Analysis - If the Regents had really been interested in hearing input from the people who pay them tuition, they would have allowed for at least an hour's worth of public comment in the same way that the Santa Cruz city council often does when big issues are up for a vote. This would have allowed folks to blow off steam in a relatively constructive way but this was not allowed. During the sit in, demonstrators probably wouldn't have continued to hold the Regents captive for more than an additional hour - the widespread feeling was that we'd made our point and were close to dispersing. Had the Regents waited it out, the confrontation could have been avoided. As it stands, the cops rushed the crowd which reacted the way any large group of angry people tend to when they're being pushed. Nuff said.
---
reply to the above, posted 2006-10-19 by "Photos don't lie" to "UCSC Protests" gallery photo 4 of 5 [http://www.santacruzphotogallery.com/gallery/protest/ucsc_protest4]:
I agree with your portrayal, with one different opinion on my part. Those weren't regents, and the police weren't trying to get them out. They were community members who had made public comments and wanted to get out. Mardi Wormhoudt came out first; none of the protesters seemed to mind. Then another person came out about 10 minutes later; again, little reaction. But when the two guys pictured in photo #2 of this gallery came out, the students mistakenly thought they were regents and went off. But neither one was a regent. They are local businessmen, who had made public statements and then wanted to leave. When the students charged, the cops pushed back. And when the cops then went to retreat back inside, the cops sprayed them. Look at the pepper spray photo in this gallery. The cops are Inside the building, spraying out. They aren't in the courtyard trying to get anyone out.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Chicano Liberation Day, dedicated Aug. 29th, 2006

August 29th, Chicano Memorial Day, and the 36th anniversary of the National Chicano Moratorium is soon upon us. Where are we today? Where have we been? What are we doing to advance our peoples toward liberation? Marching in the streets for immigrant rights/reform? Practicing accommodationist strategies for successful living under U.S. colonial rule? Being proud Indian scouts for multinational corporate interests, both locally and abroad, in their repression of our brothers, sisters, children, parents, and grandparents? Are we co-conspirators in the raping and destruction of our Mother Earth, leaving nothing for the next seven generations?
What have we learned? What are we teaching our children and grandchildren? What sense of values are we practicing? Who will our children and grandchildren emulate? Is there a tomorrow? Is there an end?
It is time to move our people and movement forward. Enough of the "His Spic" apologists who are willing collaborators and servants to the interests of white supremacy and privilege, house servants to the white master. Their solutions for accommodation  have just created a class of social parasites that seek only to preserve themselves at the expense and misery of the people. Enough is enough, ya basta!
As the Partido Nacional La Raza Unida, a national Chicano political organization in the over 500 years of colonial occupied U.S. Southwest, we declare this day, August 29, to be National Chicano Liberation Day. Enough is enough! We will no longer tolerate as a people the continued lies and manipulations by this present colonial occupier who does not or never has had the indigenous peoples interests at heart. The populations that continue to migrate to this region are victims of the global oppression being waged by this colonial power. Call them economic refugees or anything you want to call them. They have been driven out of their homelands by U.S. global political and economic policies.
We must dissuade our youth from participating in this global campaign of repression and destruction. We must turn our younger generations away from the road to incarceration that has many of our potential warrior society isolated from their people. There is a method to this madness which includes complete traditional and spiritual ignorance, no sense of history, with complete political and economic dependency on the colonial government.
This August 29th, 2006 let us remember our heroes and martyrs of our Chicano Movement. May they not have died in vain. They should not be trivialized as some oddity as the collaborators of this colonial government would have us believe. On this day we should be gathering our families together in the spirit of national Chicano liberation. Shout out loud for all to hear the names of our fallen brothers and sisters. Let the peoples of Aztlan know that the Chicano Movement is for the liberation of this land and its people. We are Aztlan part and parcel to the whole Pan Indigenous Movement of Abya Yala.


AUGUST 29TH, 1970, COMMEMORATION
NATIONAL CHICANO LIBERATION DAY
Among the many important days in Chicano history, August 29th, 1970 stands out not only as a day in opposition to the Viet Nam War, but as a profound, "YA BASTA" to war and the many injustices that our people have been subjected to since the third colonization of our people at the end of the US-expansionist war of 1846-1848.
Therefore, EL PARTIDO NACIONAL DE LA RAZA UNIDA, in recognition of our heroic struggle and the many companeras and companeros who have given their lives for the movement declare
August 29th
NATIONAL CHICANO LIBERATION DAY

ADELANTE PUEBLO, LUCHA POR LA
AUTO-DETERMINACION DEL PUEBLO Y
LA LIBERACION DE AZTLAN
** VIVA EL DIA DE LA LIBERACION NACIONAL CHICANA!!
LONG LIVE NATIONAL CHICANO LIBERATION DAY!!
LONG LIVE THE MARTYRS OF AZTLAN!
* QUE VIVAN LOS MARTIRES DE AZTLAN!
LONG LIVE A LIBERATED AZTLAN!
* QUE VIVA AZTLAN LIBERADO!
LONG LIVE ABYA YALA!
* QUE VIVA ABYA YALA!

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Asa Sullivan (d. 2006-06-07, San Francisco)

Another Unarmed Young Black Man Shot Dead by SFPD on June 7, 2006
 Is there any excuse for more of this madness?  Check it:
 "Asa Sullivan, age 25, is SFPD murder victim number 17 over the past 10 years.
 "Asa, like all of the 8 other young Black victim of cop murder over the past decade, was shot while unarmed.   The cops had no lawful reason for going to the house where Asa lived
 "Asa had not broken any laws when the cops unloaded on his young body.  In fact, no one at the home had broken any laws either.  The cops claim that they got a report that Asa and others in the apartment were squatting there.  The Parkmerced Apartment manager says that all occupants were legally in the house-NO ONE WAS SQUATTING THERE!
 "Asa had a life.  He was employed by Goodwill and was living at a friend's house at the ParkMerced Apartments next to San Francisco State University.

 What Will You Do?
 Make your presence count by making it known!
Join us On Saturday, June 10, 2006 at 3:00 p.m.
 At the Parkmerced Apartments
 3711 19th Avenue Cross: Holloway Ave

 We are those who mean to achieve justice for cop murder victims!
 Who are we?
* Justice For Cammerin Boyd Campaign,
* Police Observers Working to Effect Reform (POWER),
* Justice for Gus Rugley,
* Idriss Stelley Foundation,
and all those who believe that
ALL MATTER OR NONE MATTER!