Occupy SF

Lessons of the Avalos campaign

The mayoral candidate demonstrated what can be accomplished with a new kind of progressive leadership

11.22.11 - 4:05 pm |

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By N'Tanya Lee

It's the middle of the night. His two kids and wife are home in bed. Supervisor John Avalos, candidate for mayor, heads downtown in his beat-up family car. He parks and walks over to 101 Market Street, and casually starts talking to members of OccupySF. He's a city official, but folks camped out are appreciative when they see he's there to stand with them, to try to stop the cops from harassing them, even though its 1 a.m. and he should be in bed.Read more »

Police raid part of OccupySF

11.20.11 - 5:39 pm | Yael Chanoff |

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Police dismantled the OccupySF protest and campsite in front of the Federal Reserve building early Sunday morning.Read more »

Labor ready to fight Occupy eviction

11.18.11 - 4:23 pm | Tim Redmond |

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Tim Paulson, director of the San Francisco Labor Council, just told me that he's got as many as 500 union members on alert to stand with the OccupySF encampment if the city attempts to evict the protesters. The Labor Council has put together a communications system to let members who have volunteered to help know when a showdown with the police is coming, and the volunteers are ready to spend as much as 24 hours at Justin Herman Plaza, and if necessary, in jail.

"We mobilized for last night, but nothing happened," he said. "We're in a state of constant vigilance."Read more »

OccupySF is worth the investment

11.18.11 - 3:01 pm | Tim Redmond |

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Thirteen labor and community leaders wrote to Mayor Ed Lee Nov. 17 asking him not to evict the OccupySF protesters. The message of the hand-delivered letter: It's worth the time and effort the city will have to make to allow the encampment to remain. It was signed by Conny Ford, OPEIU Local 3, Bob Offer-Westord, Coalition on Homelessness, Pilar Sciavo, California Nurses Association, Elizabeth Alexander, SEIU 1021, Rev. Read more »

The cop group coordinating the Occupy crackdowns

11.18.11 - 11:23 am | Shawn Gaynor |

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As cities across America evict encampments of the Occupy Wall Street movement, similarities of timing, talking points and tactics among major metropolitan mayors and police chiefs have led critics to wonder: Is some sort of national coordination going on?

The White House says there’s no federal oversight. Speaking November 15 aboard Air Force One, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said “The president’s position is that obviously every municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues.”Read more »

There are homeless people and mental problems at Occupy encampments? No duh, that's the point.

11.16.11 - 1:59 pm | Caitlin Donohue |

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The SF Examiner reporter that embedded at the Occupy SF camp just brought back a titillating story of pants-off rowdies, pot smoking, and screaming. This is how it starts (I swear):

The third major fight at the Occupy SF encampment was supposed to be the last of it Monday night after about 100 protesters banished “Jimmy the Instigator.”Read more »

Occupy your imagination: Tomorrow, hear the words of a Mission son

11.16.11 - 8:57 am | Caitlin Donohue |

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It's getting into the grind time for the Occupy movement. The first, brilliant tactic of camping out in our nation's towns and cities is meeting with a nationally-coordinated crack-down, just like we all knew it would. It's time for phase two.

Benjamin Bac Sierra knows a lot about reimagining. The author survived an adolescence among the Mission gangs to publish the first novel by a native son to come out of the neighborhood in decades.

“Once upon a time,” he writes on his blog announcing a lecture tomorrow (Thu/17) at City College, “the truth was that I was supposed to be a dishwashing convict criminal and to disagree with that truth was to fight the universe.” Read more »

Editor's notes

Occupy demands for concrete change -- not just Justin Herman Plaza

11.15.11 - 6:04 pm | Tim Redmond |

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tredmond@sfbg.com

Occupy Oakland has been very good at exposing one local problem — police brutality. The first raids, and the tear gas and rubber bullets that flew afterward — showed the world how poorly trained the Oakland cops are and how unprepared they were for a largely peaceful demonstration.Read more »

Occupy SF: The eviction drumbeat begins

11.11.11 - 12:24 pm | Tim Redmond |

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We all knew that Mayor Lee wouldn't risk sending the cops in to evict OccupySF until after the election. But now the newspaper drumbeat has begun -- the place is filthy, there's shoplifting nearby and (gasp) the Ferry Building has to spend more money on toilet paper.Read more »

AIDS vigil returns at Occupy SF

11.10.11 - 9:58 pm | Yael Chanoff |

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A coalition has come together to bring a striking new component to OccupySF: a rebirth of the ARC/AIDS Vigil. The vigil created an encampment similar to OccupySF’s at UN Plaza in the 1980s and remained there for ten years, protesting the federal government's refusal to put resources into research and support for people with HIV/AIDS. Some who were involved in the vigil are currently part of the OccupySF encampment as individuals. Now, many hope to make that relationship more direct and active.

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