Occupy Oakland came up for air again this past weekend, spurring two protests in Oakland. One was centered on events that have been transpiring in Ferguson, Missouri; another focused on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Friday night’s protest march revolving around Ferguson was described in histrionic terms by one marcher, who wrote:
Last night Oakland took to the streets in solidarity with #Ferguson MO. It was one of the most intense marches I’ve been on. The police showed up looking for a fight from the beginning, blocking our way and forcing confrontations. At one point, a particularly perturbed pig lunged at us grabbing two of my friends and took them to the ground. The crowd responded with actions, not just cameras and words. I didn’t see where it came from, but at some point during the scuffle the aggressive officers were maced, freeing the two protesters from state violence.
The march continued all the way to the UC Berkeley campus, even though pigs from at least 3 different departments made attempts to disperse the group. Banks and other symbols of capitalism were attacked, gentrifiers were harassed and the pigs gained many new enemies as students and neighbors alike were treated like prisoners, not being allowed to move freely through their streets.
The second event in which Occupy Oakland was intimately involved was scheduled for Saturday morning, “Block the Boat,” a supposed blockade of an Israeli ship from the Zim cargo company.
As Breitbart California editor Joel Pollak pointed out here, the event was hoping to draw thousands, but local reporters estimated the crowd to be roughly 500 people.
Occupy Oakland had posted:
Call to Action: Palestine is calling us to action! Palestinians laborers, Palestinian General Federation Trade Union (PGFTU), have called on workers around the world to refuse to handle Israel goods. Palestinians throughout Gaza, the West Bank and 1948 Palestine have demonstrated their unity in the struggle against Apartheid Israel and have taken to the streets in the tens of thousands, bravely facing Israeli military armed with US made weapons to call on the international community to stand with them as they resist Zionism throughout all of historic Palestine. We will be answering this call by organizing community pickets at the Port of Oakland, asking the longshoreman to honor this request and to stand with the people of Palestine as they have done in the past.
The longshoreman reportedly never showed up.
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