by Anonymous
Some seem to have willfully forgotten that the Oakland Commune banner flew over the camp at Frank Ogawa / Oscar Grant Plaza during it’s hey day. Lest this amnesia spread, let’s remember what the Oakland Commune did.
Before it was known as such, and before the first tents were pitched in front of City Hall, the Oakland Commune came together in Mosswood Park because the winds were changing, the spirit of Occupy Wall Street (inspired, at least in part, by what had taken place in the Bay Area not more than two years previous) was spreading to towns across the country, and it was time for Oakland to take part.
At the height of its popularity, the Oakland Commune fed over 1,000 a day at pretty much any hour with no exceptions made. Basic First Aid, mental and emotional support were also provided to anyone who asked, all of these being extended to those abandoned by city, state and national policies that go back at least as far as Reagan.
The Oakland Commune sought to shatter the illusion that we are a wholly united 99%, an idea that weakened the movement with each racist, misogynist and homophobic remark. Instead, it sought, though often admittedly failed, to provide safe spaces for women, queers and people of color. Where it did fail, it tried to rectify through mediation and facilitation.
As much as the Oakland Commune looked to Occupy to bring people together, it also looked to the decades of hard work that the people of Oakland have put into fighting foreclosures, imperial wars, racist police violence and austerity measures that unravel the few remaining public services in this cash-strapped town.
When the first camp fell, the Oakland Commune rallied while the Oakland Unified School District decide to shutter five schools in underserved neighborhoods and Oakland Police shot tear gas into a crowd of thousands, nearly killing Scott Olsen and firing rubber bullets at the people who came to his assistance.
The Oakland Commune fretted over whether the port-a-potties could be serviced before, during and after the November 2nd General Strike. That same day, and also on December 12th, the Oakland Commune came together to shut down the Port of Oakland in protest of Goldman Sachs stranglehold on the city (a stranglehold that the City Council itself would attempt to loosen with a vote to end the debt swap months later).
When the camps were gone, the Oakland Commune dissolved in body and spread to new spaces.
The Oakland Commune traveled with a thousand others to San Quentin to support one of the most successful and least reported successes of Occupy Oakland’s tenure, Occupy for Prisoners, and joined the farmers, professional and otherwise, to Take Back the Tract. The Commune supported the sit-in that occupied one of the aforementioned shuttered schools and helped open the Biblioteca Popular (now run by the community it serves).
The Oakland Commune continues on not only in the form of raucous street parties, but in the form of campaigns against fare hikes that threaten the most precarious of communities, assemblies of workers and the unemployed, in solidarity marches with the victims of police violence from Oakland to Montreal to Anaheim to Lonmin.
For all of these actions to which it lent support, the Oakland Commune sought no credit or claim.
While Occupy Oakland wouldn’t have existed without the Oakland Commune, the Oakland Commune continues on in a new forms. So while a few seem to be fighting hard for the name and brand of Occupy, the Oakland Commune continues to fight for a life worth living.
Odd. The Oakland commune did not shut down the Port of Oakland. The West Coast Port Shutdown Committee organized the effort, and that group of some 50-60 people included many who I very much doubt would have identified as Oakland Commune members (and plenty who, I’m sure, did). Regardless, 5000 people drawn from all over shut it down.
the different pieces cited were all published together in one booklet (which we’ve linked here) as a statement from people calling themselves ‘the oakland commune.’ it is they who make direct statements, which we quote here, informing readers that they do not believe in a popular movement, and that they do believe that destruction is the only way. the fact that they celebrate community involvement doesn’t prove they care about it or that they see it as a necessary path toward justice. of course any vanguard benefits when they manage to garner any bit of public support.
the point of this statement is to align ourselves with principals of transparency and accountability, and to state our value of the expressed desires and needs of the residents of oakland, as we’ve done since our inception. while many of us felt that we were a part of the ‘oakland commune,’ and believed that to be a description of the physical manifestation of our political existence (encampment, mutual aid, etc), it seems, by what we’ve learned, that a very few are now taking ownership of that term, and in turn using it to declare occupy oakland dead while they, the chosen few, are the embodiment of the real movement.
what we hope to accomplish, as always, is open dialogue. in this particular instance, we are declaring, as occupants of oakland, that occupy oakland is nowhere near dead, and that the many great works being done are proof of that. we also, as stated, are accepting that those claiming to be ‘the oakland commune’ want no part of occupy oakland. while not accepting their declaration of our demise, we do accept their choice to divorce themselves from us.
part of the ‘joke’ on us is that, contrary to their statement suggesting that the commune named itself, the flying of the banner labeling the encampment as ‘the oakland commune’ was an intentional maneuver. the references to the paris commune are their own. each person will or not take responsibility to read their publication to determine whether oomedia’s take on the situation seems fair and relevant.
given the fact that many of us continue to operate with respect to the original complaints by ows, combined with concerns specific to oakland, and are on a quest to enlist the support of the communities at large, we find ourselves in direct opposition to these few who have published out loud that they do not value popular opinion or involvement, as they believe they are the anointed ones. they value public participation when it empowers them, but do not value public opinion when it is against them. they have stated that their intention is to infiltrate longstanding social networks, such as unions, for the purpose of exploiting their power or eliminating them. this is not something that was ever discussed publicly at occupy oakland general assemblies, and is contrary to our stated goals of garnering support from the public and all established social networks for the purpose of developing a truly popular movement, and doing so in a transparent manner with no back room deals.
fred,
sorry for the reply above, which got cut & pasted (after a long time thinking) into the wrong space. don’t know how to delete it, since it is nonsensical as a reply to you … but it doesn’t say anything i don’t want to say.
my reply to you is that i agree. plenty of people who do not identify with this new definition of ‘the oakland commune’ have been involved in really good work as occupants of oakland. twenty to fifty thousand people shut down the port of oakland on 2 november. too bad a few people who had previously agreed to restrain themselves (along with probably several cops) decided to be destructive that day, giving occupy oakland a bad name and undermining the establishment of a truly popular movement by the people.
Funny how many freethinkers and rebels have such an incredibly difficult time grasping onto such a concept as the Oakland Commune…a TAZ does not need permission or acknowledgement to exist. It is there of it own accord, however it may intersect with our particular brand of space/time.
tobias – the “T” of TAZ is pretty key….TEMPORARY autonomous zones are not meant to last indefinitely. this oakland commune that people are building up in their minds is the notion that keeps people tethered to the plaza. the camp, while it was awesome in some respects, is so romanticized that it is sad. the so called commune was nowhere near perfect. this critique of the oakland commune concept is to point out that key organizers set lots of wheels into motion to give occupy oakland the character it is known to have.
The “key organizers” did plenty it’s true. But the bulk of what was so cool about what was happening in and around the Plaza had little or nothing to do with them. Indeed, one could argue that those things happened DESPITE them.
The proliferation of subcommittees to handle various tasks was definitely NOT one of the “key organizers’” wheels in motion; those were self-organized efforts of people who took it upon themselves to satisfy their own needs and desires (viz, Children’s Village, the First Aid tent, the Library).
The only wheel in motion the “key organizers” provided was not asking permission of legal authorities for what Occupy did. The subcommittees took that principle and applied it to themselves. The “key organizers” were indifferent to the day to day tasks of the subcommittees – unless they were involved in trying to make their presence indispensable in the ones that had a modicum of power associated with them, and where they could throw their weight around (specifically, the places where public power relations were forming, for example in the Facilitation and Media subcommittees).
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