Watch Democracy Now's coverage of Occupy Oakland before you judge

[annm4peace]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/30/occupy_oakland_over_400_arrested_as


i'm so tired of people making judgements on this weekends actions by Occupy Oakland when they don't even know what is going on.

Or have only corporate news on the coverage. It is so incredibly slanted and people are DU should be smarter than that.

Police have arrested more than 400 Occupy Oakland protesters, as well as a number of journalists, in one of the largest mass arrests since the nationwide Occupy protests began last year. When protesters attempted to convert a vacant building into a community center on Saturday, witnesses say police used tear gas, bean bag projectiles and flash grenades. Several hours later, police said some of the protesters broke into City Hall. However, demonstrators claim they found the door to City Hall already ajar. We play a video report from Oakland filed by John Hamilton of KPFA. We get a response from Occupy Oakland member, Maria Lewis, to Oakland City Council Member Ignacio De La Fuente’s accusation that the Occupy movement is engaging in "domestic terrorism." "They are more interested in protecting abandoned private property than they are the people. And the idea that opening up a social center is terrorism is very telling of the narrative of the police state," Lewis says

MARIA LEWIS: Hi. Yeah. So, this weekend, despite the brutal police repression that the people of Oakland faced, I think was a really beautiful weekend. What we saw was thousands of people taking to the streets to reclaim what this economic and political system in this country has systematically denied us, which is the right to basic food, basic shelter, basic medical care, the things that the Oakland Commune, Occupy Oakland, used to provide in its encampment and has been unable to since that encampment was brutally repressed by the Oakland police. There were thousands of people in the street who fought to reclaim a building, a vacant building, and one of the hundreds of vacant buildings in the city, and to open that space up for people as a social center, as a place where we can get basic—our basic needs met and meet them ourselves. And while we weren’t able to secure that building this weekend, I was really amazed at the spirit and the voracity of the Oakland residents who were fighting in the street this weekend.

I think one of the other things we saw this weekend was a brutal police repression that was really revealing about the priorities of the city. So, tear gas, flashbang grenades, rubber bullets, beanbag guns were all used against Oakland residents who were attempting to retake an abandoned building. All of this was used to protect abandoned private property, and I think that that’s really revealing about the city’s priorities, that it’s really more intere

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[BeFree]

2. Cops need to leave the People alone

If the People want to assemble the cops need to back the fuck off.

The cops are making themselves look like Nazi's.

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. rec'd

[niyad]

4. even without the sound on, what I saw of the actions of the police was beyond disgusting.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

5. K&R

[Wind Dancer]

6. Watched it this morning.

Definitely a K & R!