That the proposal to pass a resolution dedicating the City of Oakland to protect the port from any disruption finally failed has been widely reported in the media. Some have even claimed that the eight Councilors
District 1 – Jane Brunner
District 2 – Pat Kernighan
District 3 – Nancy Nadel
District 4 - Libby Schaaf
District 5 – Ignacio De La Fuente
District 6 – Desley Brooks
District 7 – Larry Reid
At-Large – Rebecca Kaplan
were harangued. Perhaps. You can judge for yourself.
here's another portion:
For people who don't normally attend local government hearings, this is an excellent primer. If the time limits seem intimidating, that's by design. Getting citizens flustered is one way to get rid of them.
Councilor Kernighan obviously considered it important to lecture us on proper deportment--not what people who have been arrested for colliding with a police baton are keen to hear.
But the most moving presentation came from Elaine Brown, former chairman of the Black Panther Party.
Transcript follows:
EB Thank you. Um. I want to say again I was here before when you attempted to pass this kind of resolution. I want to say it was reflected on the streets on the 28th of January. I was out there in the streets with everyone else . I watched the police beat a young girl, eighteen years old on a bike because she didn’t move fast enough. I watched the Berkley police turn back Tom Bates, the Mayor of Berkley, and I watched all kinds of police do all kinds of brutal things and no one else was harming in the streets, except the police.
The saddest part about what’s going on is this Council right now is that blacks and the women and so forth act like you can’t hear what’s going on, and the Clerk is sitting there like she’d doin’ something important, city Manager’s actin like (inaudible) and all of you have these jobs because people, because as the former Chairman of the Black Panther Party, people like me got in the streets, and people with guns (clapping and shouting)
so you can sit here today and then try to create a police state. You ought to be ashamed. (shouting and clapping) It’s all irrelevant to you, but you wouldn’t have these jobs. You don’t have this job because you’re special or particularly brilliant, but because people shed blood so you could get here. (clapping)
So, on the 28th of January I saw what you’re prepared to do --create a police state in this city. You’re prepared to make it so every living human being can’t even go in the street or do anything. This is not only, not only is this not about workers, this is anti-union, and I happen to be a union rep, so I’m positive this has nothing to do with unions or workers. It’s anti-union and workers. The police are here to protect the capitalists and the people who are making profit off the poor.
Now I want to say one thing about the port’s profits, because one of the things we never hear --you’ve delineated all the money that’s taken for the port, but you haven’t told us why none of this money isn’t coming to the people. (clapping) We don’t even have a good accounting of this. The port belongs to the people and so forth.
You have created, or about to create a police state that recalls the time when Dr. King, when the klans and dixiecrats would try to get together and try to pass legislation that pretended to have something to do with democratic vote. You oughta be ashamed of what side of history you’re now on--you’re now on the same side with all those people who told Dr. King not to protest, and who were prepared to kill him and who, as a matter of fact, did kill him at the end of the day.
I’m saying that the masses of people of this country and this city are trying to make a statement to you, and instead of you listening, you have decided to be on the wrong side of history. I’m not going to talk a long time, but here’s what I’m saying, “I will see you outside in the streets.” You can sit in this chamber and act like you don’t understand what’s going on. You’ll vote for this, but you will be in the streets, just like Tom Bates was turned away by his own cops. And we the people will judge who’s judging in the street. You will be taken out, Fuente, and you will be taken out (clapping and shouting)
We’re going to use the right to freedom of speech because what you’re doing here is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever seen. And you come here under a progressive banner -- to all of you, or you didn’t come under a progressive banner (you weren’t out in the streets in 1968) City Administrator--you got here because I fought for you (clapping and shouting) You will be judged. Not only history will be the judge, but the people when they get in the street -- and just like this woman (pointing) walking up here -- is just completely rude to the people -- The people in the street know, you will have to pay.
That’s all I have to say.
Next Oakland Ell
I just want to open with something I want to share. It’s a paragraph from the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are isntituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
I think many of the people sitting before me have forgotten that.
I’d also like to speak about my experience on January 28th. Because as many of you have already been informed, I work with the occupiers as a medic. I’d like to know how many of you have seen tear gas in the eyes of a child.
Anyone?
I’d like to know how many of you have cleaned one of those cute “bean bag” wounds. I’d like to know how many of you even know what is in what they call those bean bag rounds. Because, I can assure you, it’s not beans. It’s not plastic. It’s small lead pellets. I’d also like to know how many of you have treated a hand burned by a tear gas cannister. I have. I’d like to know how many of you have treated a wound from a rubber bullet, which, again, is a lead pellet encased in hard rubber. None of you have; I have. None of you have seen what “less lethal force” does to people of this city and I have. I am out there in the streets every time you allow OPD to use these things against people who are protesting. And I’m the one who cleans it up.
Audience member THANK YOU
Some of the people before you today have said the blood is on your hands, but that’s not true. The blood is on my hands, beause I’m the one mopping it up (clapping and shouting)
I’d also like to say something about the allegations of outside agitators.
I’d like to know exactly how many OPD officers live in Oakland. Because when I was being unlawfully detained, on January 28th, I asked the Gentleman arresting me “Excuse me, can I ask a question? Do you live in Oakland?” And he said, “of course not, it’s way too dangerous there.”
I’d also like to know how you can accuse us of being full of outside agitators when you bring in mutual aid from other police agencies.
(clapping)
I’ve never been a police officer, but I’m fairly certain that bringing armed men and women and armored men and women in armored vehicles into this city is far more outside agitation than anything a couple of kids can possibly do.
I’d also like to address something you said (unintelligible)--you said when I got up here before I requested that my time not be started until everybody on the dais made eye contact with me. You’re right. I also don’t interrupt anyone and I also
continue to ask any of you to make eye contact with me when I speak. I’m an Oakland taxpayer; I’m an Oakland citizen; all I see is contempt. (hollering)
I’d also like to point out that (names who all is paying attention) the only person not paying attention is not an Oakland resident. I have stated time and time again that it is criminal for you, Miss Santana, who will still not make eye-contact with me, to take such an elevated salary from this city while not reinvesting the funds into this community. But it is doubly criminal because you don’t pay attention to people who live here.
Now, on this proposal to prevent future port shutdowns, what many people seem to be forgetting is that there’s also an amendment in this proposal that prevents people from marching in the street by way of peaceful demonstration. I read you the first Amendment earlier. I hope I don’t have to do it again, I hope that everyone still remembers. It was not long ago.
Audience--“read it again”
Elle
Read it again? OK. (objection)
The fact of the matter is that requiring these permits for peaceful marches is un-Constitutional, because the City issues those permits selectively. We know from experience that the city won’t issue permits to Occupy Oakland because we’ve had serveral people try to receive them. How is it lawful for you to make an Amendment, or to make a proposal saying you want to take this right away from people? The First Amendment clearly grants them that right. We don’t need a permit. The First Amendment doesn’t say anything about going to see an official. The First Amendment doesn’t say anything about paying a fee to be assembled. The first Amendment grants us that right and we will continue to utilize that right.
As I said before, I’d read the first Amendment, but I didn’t get to the sixth and eighth, both of which have been violated.
So, I’d like to continue and read those to you now.
Sixth Amendment = in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district where the crime shall have been committed, which district shall ascertained by law, and shall be informed …..
I read this to you because on January 28th, over four hundred people were arrested, many were held over 50 hours without being arraigned or, in fact, actually booked. (audience interjects)
I’d also like to read to you the eighth Amendment.
Excessive bail shall not be require, nor shall (clapping)
On January 28th, when over 400 people were unlawfully detained by OPD, at the behest of the City Council, several people were denied medical treatment, were crammed into cells that weren’t large enough or too small for the amount of people put in them. People were not decontaminated after being exposed to chemical weapons. If you’ve noticed, I have a cough because I was locked in a room with people who were covered in tear gas for over twenty-four hours.
In addition, we’ve noticed that OPD has the habit of accusing people of assaulting an officer when they have the audacity of accidentally running into a police baton. The reason it’s a violation of the eighth Amendment is because the bail enhancement makes it very difficult for people to get out of jail after having been beaten by OPD.
I still have about three minutes left. As it was brought to my attention that there was someone here before who was speaking about occurrences at Tahrir Square and in Egypt and nobody paid attention to that person. So, I would like to use my next three minutes as a period of silence out of respect for people who have lost their lives protesting the very same thing in Egypt.
A corrupt government is very, very bad thing, and it is the duty and a right of people to correct it and you should all give respect to the people in Egypt who attempt that. (Applause--silence -- coughing)
Camera pans room and Elaine starts “We shall overcome.”