UCBPD Make First Arrest At Today’s Open Occupation

Just moments ago a group of 5 UCPD officers detained a man at the Tolman Hall occupation for allegedly striking a police officer earlier in today’s scuffles.

With a dispersal notice immanent, those that are still inside Tolman Hall and are calling for everyone to come support them.

End the repression!

Disband UCPD!

 

 

Footage from Civic Center BART protest

No justice, no peace!  Disband the BART police!

Brown and the Dems cut $150M each from UC and CSU, defer $2.8B from K-12 and community colleges

Yes, you read that right.  Not $2.8 million, but $2.8 billion.  WTF?!  We don’t even really have anything to say.  At a loss for words right now.  According to a Sacramento Bee blog, among the cuts that remain from the budget Brown recently vetoed are:

• $150 million cut each to University of California, California State University

• $2.8 billion in deferrals to K-12 schools and community colleges

Thankfully this budget rejects $540 million in deferrals to the UC system, but unless an extra $4 billion in revenues materialize next fiscal year, a series of so-called “trigger” cuts kick in.  Again, from the Bee:

The “trigger” cuts are essentially in three tiers, based on how much of the extra $4 billion comes in. (We have assigned numbers to the tiers to better explain the system.)

Tier 0: If the state gets $3 billion to $4 billion of the money, the state will not impose additional cuts and roll over any balance of the problem into the 2012-13 budget.

Tier 1: If the state gets $2 billion to $3 billion of the money, the state will impose about $600 million of cuts and roll over the remainder into the 2012-13 budget. The $600 million in cuts include:

— $100 million cut to UC
— $100 million cut to CSU
— $100 million cut to In-Home Supportive Services hours
— $100 million cut to Department of Developmental Services
— $80 million cut to public safety programs
— $30 million cut to community colleges triggering a $10/unit fee hike
— $23 million across-the-board cut to childcare funding
— $20 million cut to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
— $16 million cut to California State Library in library grants
— $15 million cut related to Medi-Cal Managed Care
— $15 million cut to California Emergency Management Agency
— $10 million cut to Department of Social Services in anti-fraud grants

Tier 2: If the state gets $0 to $2 billion of the money, the state will also impose as much as $1.9 billion in additional cuts, proportionate to revenues:

— $1.5 billion reduction to K-12 schools that allows districts to drop seven classroom days. That would lower the required total to 168 days, down from 180 days three years ago.
— $248 million cut that eliminates school bus transportation
— $72 million cut to community colleges

All cuts would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, except for the school year reduction, which districts could impose starting Feb. 1, 2012.

Anticut 2 this Friday in downtown Oakland

Following on the heels of Anticut 1 nearly two weeks ago, Anticut 2 is set to take place this Friday, June 17.  Last week saw roughly 150 demonstrators flyering against austerity, with a special emphasis on the impending library closures, during Art Murmur.  Let’s see if we can turn out a larger crowd this time around.  People will begin gathering where Telegraph meets Broadway at 3 pm.  Anticut 3 is scheduled for July 8; check the Bay of Rage site in a few days for details.

The following text appeared on leaflets distributed during the anti-Mehserle march last Sunday:

Oscar Grant (RIP), our brother.
It feels like the man has just been laid to rest, and the pig is already out of jail.

Like adding insult to injuries, poverty to brutality, the policy of austerity is now about to starve our schools, libraries, WIC, and social services of funding. The white male power structure has caused an economic crisis. Andas usual, they expect us to pay for it with our futures: with our educations, our libraries, and in brother Oscar’s case (and many more), our lives. We’re left with few other options for survival other than turning to the underground economy: hustling or homelessness. And as you read this, they’re inventing brand new ways to put you in jail for both.

You and I would have to be blind and bamboozled to ever think that any politician liberal will ever deal with our problems. For proof, we need only look at how they treat our children, and our martyrs. Our Oscar Grants. Our Gary Kings, whose mural was sand-blasted off of the pillars on MLK in north Oakland. The policy of Austerity is not just cutting a school budget. It is not just closing libraries. It’s filling prisons and killing poor people, as the alternative to the libraries, schools, and services they cut. It’s a whole worldview, that the rich deserve to get richer by making us poorer. A whole system of “crisis” that makes the poor pay for the problems caused by the rich.

Mehserle’s release in light of all this disregard for our lives just confirms what we know: the machine does not care. The faces of racism and capitalist change. From Bush, Schwarzenegger, and Dellums, to Brown, Quan, and Obama. The endless cycle of two-faced politicians supervising our genocide goes on endlessly because we have allowed them to control our lives.

We must take matters into our own hands.
To the streets, where the real power has always been.

Mehserle is out of jail. Maybe Oscar Grant can’t get justice. But what we learned during these past two years isn’t off the table: when we seize the time, seize the streets, and openly rebel, we can effectively chin-check these pigs and make City Hall do a double-take before funking with us again. If it weren’t for you and I, and our collective power to rebel, Mehserle would never even have been arrested.

Let’s build our power in these streets. Here’s somewhere to start:

Anticut 2: Let’s block everything!
Friday, June 17th 3pm at Broadway and Telegraph

p.s. due to gentrification (genocide), the black population of Oakland has dropped by 25% since 1990. Due to austerity (genocide), 14 of our 19 libraries may be closed to keep the police paid and the prisons open.

“Your child’s future was the first to go with budget cuts.
If you think this hurts, then wait here comes the upper-cut:
The school was garbage in the first place: that’s on the up-and-up.” -Lupe Fiasco

State Democrats attempt to destroy CA public education

California Democrats are attempting to bypass the GOP and force through a plan that would close the state budget but leave the state’s public education system in ruins.

The Democrats’ proposal would further cut the University of California and California State University systems – after the $1 billion reduction approved in March – delay billions of dollars in payments to K-12 schools, and increase vehicle registration fees by $12 a year, along with other measures.

The plan would all but devastate the Cal State system:

Higher education officials also raised concerns. At CSU, a cut of $150 million on top of the $500 million cut announced in March could translate to a tuition increase of 10 to 15 percent next spring, said CSU spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp.

For the UC system, it would mean fee hikes next year are certain:

UC President Mark Yudof has said that the university could absorb the current $500 million cut it faces without raising tuition but that any additional cuts would likely mean fee hikes throughout the system.

According to the Chronicle, the Democrats’ plan would impact public education as follows:

• K-12 schools and community colleges would lose $3 billion in owed money from the state, payments that would be delayed until the 2012-13 fiscal year. Schools also would have to wait for an additional $500 million payment that the governor proposed making as part of his May budget plan.

• The UC and CSU systems would face a cut of $150 million each in addition to $500 million cuts to each system approved by the Legislature earlier this year. The state also could delay for two months a $245 million payment to UC.

Yet another reason to leave strategies involving petitioning Sacramento in the dustbin…

Live tweeting from OG march/rally

For live news from the rally/march check out http://www.twitter.com/thosewhouseit

Mehserle to be released tomorrow — ALL OUT TO THE FRUITVALE BART TODAY AT 3!

On Friday Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry ruled that Johannes Mehserle should be released on Monday for good behavior after serving only half of his two-year term.  According to the LA Times, extra cops will be deployed all over Oakland today.  Hopefully we’ll see you at the Fruitvale BART at 3; otherwise, 5:30 @ 14th & Broadway.

Anticut 2 this Friday!

Keep an eye out for details on Anticut 2, a follow-up to Bay of Rage’s inaugural anti-austerity march Anticut 1 just over a week ago.  More info will be available shortly here.

Student-workers stage sit-in at UCLA

From the Daily Bruin:

About 25 students and workers participated in a sit-in outside Chancellor Gene Block’s office this afternoon to protest the suspension of free tutoring programs in Covel Commons. Administrators announced in March that the Covel Peer Learning Labs would be discontinued for next year because of funding issues, which has spurred an outcry from participants and supporters of the program. […] The protesters picketed outside of Murphy Hall from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and gathered signatures from about 150 students for a petition to save the program. At about 2:30, the crowd entered Murphy Hall and marched through the building chanting “Save Covel!” At 2:35 p.m. the protesters reached Chancellor Gene Block’s office where they delivered their petition and demands, and began their sit-in. The chancellor was not in his office. The demands included greater inclusion of Covel employees in the plan for next year’s tutoring services, and inclusion of the workers in the committee assessing the need for the tutoring program, set up by Smith.

Continue reading here.  For background info, check out the Save Covel blog.

Oskar Barnack ∞ Oscar Grant

Grab your cameras and come out to the Fruitvale BART this Sunday at 3 pm.  See you there…