Recent articles have quoted Shake Anderson and others as a representatives of Occupy Oakland apologizing for past actions of the movement. This includes an article in the Oakland Tribune and another by Kevin Zeese, an activist in Washington, DC.
Anderson and the Occupy Oakland Media Collective claim to be on an “apology campaign” to defend Occupy Oakland from the “Oakland Commune.”
First, the Oakland Commune is simply a nickname for the camp at Oscar Grant Plaza and the community that grew out of it, no more, no less. It is a term of endearment used by Occupy Oakland participants, not some separate shady organization.
More importantly, Anderson is a member of the “Occupy Oakland Media Collective” which publishes the HellaOccupyOakland.org web site, which is separate from OccupyOakland.org.
The Occupy Oakland Media Collective does not represent Occupy Oakland.
Far from it.
From January to March, the Occupy Oakland Media Collective–then known as the “OO Media” committee–met in secret while pretending to have a transparent committee open to all, eventually expelling members of the committee who did not agree with an article they published on their web site. The article in question ridiculously and offensively accused an Arab-American activist in Occupy Oakland of being both a terrorist and a federal agent–based on “evidence” from a Department of Defense anti-terrorism document!–that was briefly published on hellaoccupyoakland.org.
The racist nature of this accusation was contradictory to everything the Occupy movement stands for. The Occupy Oakland General Assembly voted to distance itself from the group in March 2012.
That resolution is posted here:
1. Last Saturday, an offensive, irresponsible and dangerous article titled
“Occupational Awareness” was posted on the OO Media web site. Occupy
Oakland denounces the article. The article contains personal attacks on an
individual in Occupy Oakland that are untrue and unsubstantiated, and that
are extremely dangerous to him and to the movement. The article appeals
and legitimates a fantasy of “terrorist threat” that has consistently been
used by the state to repress and silence protest, and to create false
“enemies,” and uses classic racist tactics of racial profiling to do so.
This article is not only a serious danger to the person attacked, it is a
danger to our movement and it requires immediate action.…
Rather than abide by this resolution, the Occupy Oakland Media Collective renounced the General Assembly–which passed this vote of over 140 people with 90% supporting–and decided to go its own way. They chose to leave Occupy Oakland rather than apologize for their offensive behavior and now have a highly restrictive membership policy which is an affront to the open-air organizing that took place in October and November of 2011 at Oscar Grant Plaza.
The Occupy Oakland Media Collective now claims to represent Occupy Oakland, speaking on behalf of the movement claiming that the tactics of the “Oakland Commune” turned people off. But these new “official” representatives played no serious role in organizing any of the mass actions. However, they have done much to take credit for them and even, it seems, profit off of them.
Occupy Oakland does not have a position for or against vandalism and activists have varying attitudes toward this tactic. The Occupy Oakland Media Collective hopes to attract attention to themselves over this issue while doing nothing to clarify the distinction between a few broken windows compared to massive police repression, assault and arrests. The Occupy Oakland Media Collective is playing directly into the hands of the opponents of the Occupy movement in the media, in City Hall and even vigilantes who call on Oaklanders to “beat the shit out of anarchists/vandals.”
The only true representative of the movement is the General Assembly. The General Assembly has spoken against the Occupy Oakland Media Collective. They do not represent Occupy Oakland, so please do not quote them as doing so.
The General Assembly no longer has large enough attendance to reach quorum–requiring at least 75 people–so it cannot speak for itself. The Occupy Oakland Media Collective, which is literally a handful of people, have attempted to fill the void. They can do what they wish, but claiming to be Occupy Oakland is utterly disingenuous.
Many of the activists who made up Occupy Oakland have continued organizing around school and library closures, prisoner solidarity, feminist marches, anti-police violence protests, labor solidarity and other actions while the Occupy Oakland Media Collective does what it only knows how–increase its web traffic by claiming to be something that it is not.
You left out the most important part of the resolution the OO General Assembly passed in March. We decided that the OO media committee should be disbanded, and all it’s resources (email lists, Facebook account, etc) be passed on to a newly formed committee. Occupy Oakland called them liars, disowned them, and told them to stop representing themselves OO…which they refused to do.
http://occupyoakland.org/2012/03/1-for-3412-ga-proposal-to-denounce-people-who-tweet-a-shit-storm/
it’s kinda sad that anybody thought it was a good idea to censor media, as occupyoakland dot org website has been doing all along. also sad is this pathetic attempt to pretend a small group of people did not just publish an article claiming ownership of the phrase ‘the oakland commune’ … and also claiming that occupy oakland is dead.
it might take me a minute to go through this unsigned rant to point out all the bits of misinformation herein. not to mention loudly the ‘unsigned’ part being in direct conflict with the concept of transparency the author so boldly cites as part of the tenets of occupy oakland.
beginning with the first sentence, collective members of oomedia recently published a statement giving oomedia’s take on publications by the self-described ‘oakland commune.’ in that statement, oomedia is commenting as participants in occupy oakland, as occupants. nowhere in that statement does oomedia claim to ‘represent’ occupy oakland. oomedia claims affinity with occupy oakland.
while the phrase ‘the oakland commune’ seemed innocent enough, as a real representation of the encampment and the use of true mutual aid, it is a title which was purposefully introduced by, and one which has recently been usurped by a small cadre of individuals, who see themselves as a vanguard to what they clearly describe as a destructive force against all that is. the reference they cite is the paris commune. these folks describe themselves as being against the notion of a popular movement, considering the work involved in trying to mesh the many differences of opinion of the general public too much to bother with.
after a couple of months of requesting assistance and receiving none to address a real problem with a disruptive and abusive member of oomedia, suspicion arose that this member might not be safe to work with, whether because of his own personal issues or because he was working for someone to purposefully prevent the committee from being effective. his abuse was too systematic, as was his ability to charm those not in the committee. when three members of oomedia published a pdf file, indicating their concern that the person in the photo may not be the person he says he is (but also including a statement that they weren’t certain the person in the photo was the disruptive, abuser), it was out of fear. while i don’t personally condone their action, i do understand that they were concerned that if they’re newly discovered information which seemed to verify their suspicions was true, they would be in danger owning that information privately. ie if this suspicious person was, indeed, working as a paid disrupter or informant (possibly in trade for having been let out of jail), whichever alphabet crew employing him might do what alphabet crews have done throughout history : eliminate a whistleblower before the damning evidence can get out. there was nothing racist about this action, the authors signed the article (which is more that i can say for the author who published this article), and nowhere did they accuse this person of being a terrorist. the oomedia members who published this did, indeed, apologize for not realizing the unintended consequences of their action. they acknowledged that their decision to publish this article was not well thought out.
while i’m on the topic, it’s hilarious that, in the effort to sufficiently dramatize the response, laleh went off the deep end with comments : ‘i knew this would happen, but i never thought it would come from within first’ in reaction to her claim that someone had called the disrupter a terrorist. i reiterate, nobody called anybody a terrorist in that article. news for some : de la fuente had called all occupants economic terrorists weeks before, in public, on tv …
making false claim that oomedia had ‘secret meetings’ is just as it appears : a false claim. based on the fact that a couple of people who were previously on the committee (one who had been routinely verbally abusive and systematically disruptive and divisive over many months, the other whom had recently publicly stated, on camera, that he refused to work with members of the media committee), these two were uninvited because of their own actions. for months previous to this series of events, the disruptive member had actually told new people to leave meetings, and attempted to tell working members that they were not part of occupy oakland and should shut up. from early november through february, we announced and held public meetings. the first private meeting was held to address issues of internal conflict which had been perpetrated by one abusive member. that member had refused to participate in any effort to address the complaints. new members were not invited, as it would be inappropriate for new people to attend a mediated meeting set specifically to address these issues.
as we move forward, many committees of occupy oakland hold meetings regularly without announcing them at all. their internal ongoing discussions are not accessible to all. this author seems to waver between the concepts of transparency and ‘security culture.’ it’s difficult to do both, but oomedia has worked to find that balance.
oomedia is not separate from occupy oakland. no matter any resolution to attempt to separate one from the other, it is, by our own agreements via the general assembly process, impossible for the general assembly to determine who may or may not participate in the movement that is occupy oakland. the very definition agreed upon very early on in the development of this movement included that any person or group could create a committee or working group and operate as part of occupy oakland. there was never any process for ‘becoming officially recognized as a committee of occupy oakland’ and, in fact, that idea surfaced after the attempt to excommunicate members of oomedia from occupy oakland (something every person said they were not trying to do, but the author of this article is saying they were trying to do), seemingly to cement the concept into easily manipulated minds that somehow we’d been doing that all along. that is not the case.
attempting to balance the concepts of transparency, accountability, and security is exactly what oomedia has done from the beginning. the fact that a mob scene (maybe someday i’ll link the video, but look at end of february, beginning of march general assembly videos by ustream/oakfosho) declared that occupy oakland somehow ‘owned’ the assets of an autonomous committee of occupy oakland is absurd to the point of comedy. had anyone of that mob had access to shut down the website and readership built by a hard working crew of over a dozen active and thirty overall members on that day, they would’ve surely done it. unfortunately, simple minds conclude that would’ve been a good thing. simple minds don’t delve into the politics of autonomy vs tyranny. taking ownership of the fruits of someone else’s labor is tyranny.
oomedia chose to recover from the mob mentality by reforming as a collective. while it is true that there are membership requirements, anyone who abides by a very straightforward, simplistic set of guidelines is empowered to publish on the website that is http://www.hellaoccupyoakland.org … something that is still, after a year, impossible to accomplish on the oo website, which is controlled by a few who have no problem censoring the publication of the ideas of others, even as recently as yesterday.
occupy oakland, has, indeed, made decisions about using a diversity of tactics, including agreeing to a separation of time and space in the use of destructive or otherwise provocative tactics that might likely get others injured or abducted by police. our deep discussions about this have revealed an overall understanding that even for most of those who believe in the use of destructive tactics, nobody has, until recently, spoken out in support of random destruction. only those claiming to be ‘the oakland commune’ in this limited scenario have done so. they claim destruction as their main tool and objective.
contrary to what this anonymous author claims, oomedia has often validated the opinion that ‘a few broken windows’ does not measure up to police brutality, and that the act of breaking windows is not an excuse for opd violence against protesters. oomedia’s recent statement does not condemn the use of destructive tactics in every situation, but does absolutely condemn the use of random destruction of locally owned business and personal property. there is a drastic difference between attacks on valid targets such as banks, and random residential and small business property. the members of oomedia, like the members of any group, do not agree on all things, but did create and publish the statement as a group. no one member is the author of the statement.
as has been stated clearly and in no uncertain terms, oomedia and plenty of other occupants working diligently with other community organizations do not consider the general assembly, since march 2012, to be representative of occupy oakland. this is evident by dwindling attendance to the point at which the general assembly voted to lower quorum (which was never high enough to truly represent the people of oakland). the article here acknowledges that the general assembly has disintegrated. it is a non-entity. having alienated hundreds and even thousands of people from directly and indirectly supporting occupy oakland, the general assembly failed (or was driven by a few to failure) on it’s mission. unfortunately, efforts to reset the process were actively undermined by those who chanced being put out of power if a new, more community oriented process were to have been developed.
since the anonymous author chose to repeat a false claim, it seems necessary to repeat this response ::: oomedia made no claim to be all of or to ‘represent’ occupy oakland in this or any other statement. oomedia claims affinity with occupy oakland. each person speaks for him or her self, just like the anonymous author of this article speaks only for himself. when oomedia publishes an article as oomedia, that is an indication that collective members all agree with the statement. however, oomedia is much larger than it’s collective membership, and the collective doesn’t suggest that articles posted by oomedia collective members are necessarily representative of all the other contributors to the website.
and finally …
it’s hilarious that this anonymous author cites the need for transparency.
Yes, I understand that the Occupy Oakland Media Collective left Occupy Oakland along with most of the rest of OO’s support.
You can’t get a quorum at OO meetings anymore. Doesn’t that tell you something?
There certainly is a group putting out propaganda in the name of the Oakland Commune. Trying to deny that is infantile.
I don’t endorse all the charges made in the article slamming the Oakland Commune which Shake has been circulating, but many of the criticisms resonate with my own experience, as well as many other folks I know who have supported and participated in OO.
Ultimately, I don’t see those putting out propaganda in the name of the Oakland Commune as a big problem. It’s a pretty small core and they’ve already lost most of their support.. If the rest of us can’t out organize them (with direct actions which attract thousands), then that’s our biggest problem, not a small group insurrectionists.
I don’t feel I need to endorse an attack on the folks producing stuff as the Oakland Commune, but I appreciate all critical analysis. Folks can decide for themselves.
We need to out organize those using the name of the Oakland Commune – it’s just that simple.
While I have issues with the majority of what’s posted under the OaklandCommune user account on Bay of Rage, I don’t think whoever’s behind it is posting in the name of THE Oakland Commune. They sign their posts not as “the Oakland Commune” but with tags like “some Oakland antagonists” or “a few Oakland rebels”; and there’s no indication they consider the “Oakland Commune” to signify anything other than the totality of Oakland’s activist community. That seemed to be the universally-understood definition before the conspiracy theories circulating in recent weeks.
oo media collcetive ahve showed numerous times in the past to be divisive. it has nothing to do with the oakland commune. thats just there next focus. they will be starting trouble with other folks soon enough. oomedia collective and hellaoccupyoakland DO NOT REPRESENT OO
Occupy owes the City of Oakland only one thing: an apology
Glenn from Oakland