- Yesterday someone suggested that I needed to get off
my ass and 'do something' useful, instead just hanging around and being
a hypocrite. So I thought about it, and decided to take a page out of the
past when I was an investigative journalist for myself. I was co-owner
of a political journal in Oklahoma City called FOXFIRE.
-
- So I went down to Market Street here in the city to have
a look at what the web calls 'OCCUPY San Francisco'. I was thinking I should
maybe try to get on a video there to further spread the word about what's
happening around this country. What I found is reported here in this front
page story in the San Francisco Examiner (a nationwide publication). I
didn't see any camera equipment or much of anything like a real protest.
-
- "In San Francisco, protesters initially spent about
a week at the Bank of America building at 555 California St. The group
then moved to Union Square until they were asked to leave after about a
day. That is when they began building a semi-permanent camp on Market Street,
complete with tents and a makeshift cooking area under a blue tarp held
up between trees and bushes.
- As of Tuesday afternoon, about 40 people were setting
up for a rainy night and some protesters said police had already asked
them to move. Rob Benson, one of the protesters in his late 30s, said police
asked them to get a permit from the Department of Public Works, then they
were redirected to another city department, then back to the police.
-
- "You can't permit the right to assemble," Benson
said, adding that the group is attempting to maintain good relations with
police. "It's a right."
-
- A poster being circulated by the group calls on protesters
to show up at the Federal Reserve Building at noon today. The material
is being distributed on the website occupysf.com, which also is encouraging
people to bring supplies for long-term camping, plus gardening equipment,
art supplies, baby wipes and kiddie pools. The site also asks protesters
to bring solar-powered chargers and smart phones with tethering capabilities
to give the group roaming Internet access."
-
- The so-called "General Assembly" of the Occupy
SF movement has built a growing makeshift camp on Market Street this week
and plan a march to the Federal Reserve Bank at noon today. The group began
as a gathering of roughly 10 people camping outside the Bank of America
building on California Street on Sept. 17, the same day the flagship encampment
was set up in Zuccotti Park, two blocks north of Wall Street in New York.
-
- The Occupy Wall Street protests have spread from Los
Angeles to Boston; Chicago; Portland, Maine, and other cities. The budding
anti-Wall Street movement began last month with a vague sense of grievance
over the widening gap between the rich and poor in America.
-
- But in three weeks, it has provided fuel for a broader
national message of financial despair. Protesters have spoken out about
the lack of jobs and opportunities. Organizers in Washington, D.C., plan
a march at Freedom Plaza on Thursday to "denounce the systems and
institutions that support endless war and unrestrained corporate greed."
-
- Brought together by social media outlets such as Twitter
and Facebook, participants hope the New York protests can plant the seeds
of a permanent national movement.
-
- In San Francisco, protesters initially spent about a
week at the Bank of America building at 555 California St. The group then
moved to Union Square until they were asked to leave after about a day.
That is when they began building a semi-permanent camp on Market Street,
complete with tents and a makeshift cooking area under a blue tarp held
up between trees and bushes.
-
- As of Tuesday afternoon, about 40 people were setting
up for a rainy night and some protesters said police had already asked
them to move. Rob Benson, one of the protesters in his late 30s, said police
asked them to get a permit from the Department of Public Works, then they
were redirected to another city department, then back to the police.
-
- "You can't permit the right to assemble," Benson
said, adding that the group is attempting to maintain good relations with
police. "It's a right." (1)
-
 I saw these people that are
basically homeless, victims of all kinds of addictions, but who are for
the most part homeless. Many were not young; all were concerned more with
the food than with political statements. This is actually 'nothing new'
for San Francisco, as we are about to have "FLEET WEEK" (Overflying
the city from now through the weekend), by the Navy's Blue Angels. These
flights are meant to appeal directly to supporting the war machine; and
some in the public love it; but rooftop level flights by war-planes creates
one hell of a lot of noise and it will go on now every-afternoon through
Sunday. I mention this because it is indicative of the dual-face of San
Francisco. We have a national reputation as a "liberal place."
The truth is that the hard right wing of the upper-crust of the Retarded
Republican party (that has always actually owned the city) is finally beginning
to "let that show."
-
- The city has given away civic center to a private for-profit
corporation; which includes policing that is now done by private security
guards instead of SFPD. The population from the 60's have all gone elsewhere,
for the most part and have been replaced by a huge influx of Zionistas
and their families, augmented by the faceless, sexless idiots that have
"the really-good jobs." There is no longer any creativity here;
just robots pretending to have lives, but that cannot be bothered with
anything as mundane as politics. I live here because I'm a fixture in the
landscape, a throwback to a different time and place; and because they
haven't figured out a way to get rid of me yet. (2)
-
- Across the Bay in Berkeley which was once the hotbed
of protests. That place has become home to some of the most secretive labs
and companies imaginable. The hills are filled with Orwellian-looking plants
and laboratories that look like new-age prisons: Lots of razor-wire, SECURITY
and even patrols just keeping a watchful eye on anyone that might not look
"just right." Berkeley too has lost any sense of itself or any
kind of place in a society that might really CARE about anything but itself.
-
-
- The only bright spot for real protests is in Oakland;
because in Oakland while there are still gang-troubles, and lots of crime:
There is also a huge and politically aware population that KNOWS the issues
because they are being forced to live each and every crime this government
commits each and every day. And the people are NOT afraid to talk about
things or to ban together to do things like shutting down the Port of Oakland,
which they did awhile back: SUCCESSFULLY!
-
- Yesterday, before I took that little stroll downtown
I was walking across town to Trader Joes when a man came screaming out
of the Post Office, just a block from me. "FCK OBAMA!" he was
yelling as he fell in step with me, we talked non-stop as we headed toward
downtown: About almost everything that is WRONG with this country and this
city. There was a forty year age difference but no difference in point
of view. He was a fallen away Republican, I'm an American; by the time
we went different directions we were both Americans: Which is why I thought
I ought to share what's really NOT going on here, with the rest of you.
-
- If ANYTHING comes out of San Francisco you can bet it
will have long-ago been co-opted by the same old sold-out PTW, and as a
result nothing that anyone in the Tarnished House will ever have to worry
about. . .
-
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
-
-
- 1) Occupy SF Movement Takes Root on Market Street
- http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/10/occupy-sf-movement-takes-root-market-street
-
- 2) San Francisco & the Death of Civic Center
- http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/articles/2011/art3.htm
|
