Day 1. The Story.
Day 2. The Occupation.
Before I got to Jodie's house the early morning shift had already gone and taken a picture. I'm about 10 miles to the left in this one:
I arrived at Jodie's house for my houseguarding shift a bit before 10:00 AM, homemade brownies in hand and all ready to snuggle up in one of her comfy chairs for four hours while I read The Signal and the Noise by (the now demi-god) Nate Silver. Little did I know.
As the person I was replacing was about to leave, what to our wondering eyes did appear but a man walking up to the front porch looking all business-like. Turned out he was a realtor. He claimed we were trespassing and that he would be calling the police, and then he left, but not before I got his business card.
His business card said he was from a realty agency in San Francisco by the name of Cirios Real Estate. I immediately called our crisis team, and the alerts and tweets went out. In not very long various and sundry non-business-like looking people started showing up...
Alyssa @alyssa011968
@PFailBlog Thank you! I'm on my way. Is there anything u all need?
Political Fail Blog @PFailBlog
@alyssa011968 We have coffee on the way, some doughnuts would be nice. Some to eat & some to distract the cops w/ in case they show up.
Some people brought sign-making stuff.
And I finally got into a picture! See that hand in the very upper part of the picture on he left? That's me! So there.
The signs were put to good use...
Eve Lindi @lindieve
RT @alyssa011968: #OO #OccupyOakland #DefendJodie 2 neighbors putting up signs -comrades in struggle to expand no foreclosure zone
and
I don't know if Alyssa ended up bringing donuts 'cause I had left by the time she arrived. Sad that.
As it turns out, the same day #defendjodie went into action, a large group of grocery workers went out on strike in the Bay Area over (you guessed it) health care benefits. There happens to be a shopping mall with a grocery store just a few blocks away from #defendjodie that they are now picketing. And so late this afternoon one of our house guardians reported in:
((We)) stopped by the knob hill picket and joined them for about an hour. We were very well received and met some really nice neighborhood workers. They had just that morning threatened their bosses with the possibility of inviting OO to become a presence in their picket and were overjoyed to see our contingent with OO solidarity signs as we approached. We were able to hand out a bunch of flyers and got at least one I'd them onto our text alert system. They have invited us to come back as often as we can and they showed some interest in coming to Jodie's aid when the alerts come through. Also we were able to give flyers to two seperate news vans.
Oh, the police? They never showed up.
The realtor? Jodie called him back and left him a message, but as far as I know he hasn't returned the call.
Us? We'll be back tomorrow.
Me? I think I managed to read about two paragraph's of Nate's book.
Solidarity is the People's Weapon!!
#defendjodie
Credits:
Video: PFailBlog
Pictures: Alyssa & PFailBlog.