iPouya

He. is. great.

Daily Cal: A crowd of about 3,500 [other estimates put it at 5,000] packed into Upper Sproul Plaza Tuesday evening, convening a general assembly where they voted overwhelmingly to re-establish an encampment, despite the police violence that marked encampment efforts last week.

The demonstrators gathered on Sproul for the Occupy Cal general assembly, which followed the Open University strike activities and march earlier in the day. The assembled individuals voted on three proposals, the first of which was whether to organize a debate on public education with a variety of public officials, including members of the campus administration, the UC Board of Regents and Gov. Jerry Brown.

Additionally, they voted on proposals regarding whether to send an open letter to individuals including the UC Board of Regents, the CSU Board of Trustees and unspecified education administrators, as well whether to re-establish an encampment.

All three proposals passed with an overwhelming number of votes with margins far exceeding the 80 percent requirement for any proposal to be passed by the assembly.

“I believe we should continue and stay, to assemble and to build on these steps a truly free university,” said Amanda Armstrong, graduate student and campus head steward for United Auto Workers Local 2865.

Efforts to establish an encampment at the protests last Wednesday were met with police actions that have drawn criticism, attracted national attention and elicited public outcry from a wide range of concerned groups and campus community members.

Prior to the assembly’s meeting, campus Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab advised students how to peacefully submit oneself to police in the event of arrest, a statement that was met with jeers from the assembled crowd.

“When the police return to beat us into submission, stand strong,” said UC Berkeley senior Morgan Crawford, at a later point during the assembly. Crawford said he was beaten by the police at last Wednesday’s encampment.

At the end of the meeting, around 15 police officers lingered near the outskirts of the assembled group, monitoring. Legal observers wearing neon green hats were also dispersed throughout the crowd.

Just prior to the assembly, the crowd was joined by around 300 demonstrators from Occupy Oakland and unaffiliated city residents, who were all included in votes to decide the group’s future actions.

“I think this whole Occupy situation is good for our world,” said Berkeley resident Nick Fikaris, who was present at the general assembly. “We need some kind of change. And that’s why I’m here, to see the change happen.”

For each proposal, time was given for small groups to discuss options before the floor was opened up to speakers who had a limited amount of time to present their viewpoints. Afterwards, votes were taken and tallied.

Towards the end of the allotted time for the general assembly, the crowd swelled even further in anticipation of UC Berkeley public policy professor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich’s much-anticipated Mario Savio Memorial Lecture.

The general assembly concluded just after 8 p.m., with facilitators declaring the group’s intention to continue convening at 6 p.m. every day, indefinitely.

There is a strike planned for tomorrow at UC Berkeley. I think at some point, they’ll be a renewed attempt to set up an encampment. This attempted encampment was the official reason for the clashes last week.  The university, as in other places across the country, stated that such encampments were a threat to public safety and moved in to tear them down.  Of course, there’s nothing that says “public safety” better than when police fully garbed in riot gear move in cracking ribs and skulls.   It’s the same logic behind burning a village to “save it” from Communism during the Vietnam War.  Needless to say, “public safety” is just a soundbite, an excuse by which the authorities are trying to rollback the protest tide spreading across the country. Stay tuned for what is sure to be a dramatic day tomorrow.

See the video here.

Berkeley’s chancellor responds to the police brutality against the student protesters in a silly little letter.  Look at this nonsense: “It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience.”

The ultimate hypocrisy of the all the government and police officials crackdown nationwide against the occupy movement is their statements that they are preventing encampments to ensure the health and safety of the protesters. There’s nothing like cracking skulls with batons to enforce health standards!

Look at this footage (clip 1 and clip 2).  It comes as no shock as police attack forces have been moving in on peaceful demonstrators all across the country. It really draws a contrast to the avowedly US “fight for freedom” in Iraq.  How can you “fight for freedom” elsewhere when the main battleground is right here?  Berkeley PD is waging a losing battle. Berkeley’s student population and its wider local community will inflate the protests in the coming days and simply overwhelm the police. Just watch and see.

Go Bears! The campuswide day of action in support of affordable higher education and the Occupy movement has grown throughout the day to over a thousand students at its peak in the early afternoon, from teach-outs in the morning to a noontime rally that was attended by about 1,000 people.

The protest activities thus far have mirrored past protests with teach-outs and a rally on Sproul Plaza, but in addition to a focus on state budget cuts and the affordability of higher education, the protest has strongly identified with the national Occupy movement and included a march to Bank of America on Telegraph Avenue.

Circles of classes — mostly discussion sections run by graduate student instructors — dotted various locations on campus, including Sproul Plaza, from around 8:30 a.m. until the noon rally on the steps of the plaza.

Sarah Anne Minkin, graduate student instructor in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology, said she decided to participate in the teach-out with her Introduction to Sociology discussion because of its relevance to her lesson’s subject matter — social inequalities.

“I think fighting for public education is very important — public education is our right,” Minkin said. “I think that it’s important to be a part of this movement for me, as a human being, it’s important, and as a teacher it’s important for the students to get to be a part of it as well.”

Student organizer and UC Berkeley junior Marco Amaral predicted that the noon rally would have a high attendance bolstered by demonstrators from Occupy Oakland. Some protesters from Oakland began to arrive at the campus around 11 a.m. in anticipation of the rally.

“I love seeing all the movements working together in solidarity because it really is the same issues everywhere,” said Sara Charanne, an Occupy Oakland demonstrator who said she expected thousands at the noon rally.

The noon rally — whose attendees included the UPTE-CWA 9119 union, Raza and members of the Against Cuts organization among others — featured a variety of speakers, from a satirical UC regent to ASUC External Affairs Vice President Joey Freeman.

Freeman urged students to work with the ASUC to repeal Proposition 13 to reform property taxes, support a progressive tax measure and lobby state legislators in Sacramento.

“This is a conversation that we need to continue, and this is a conversation that will continue,” he said.

The protesters then marched down Telegraph Avenue to Bank of America chanting slogans such as “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” before marching down Durant Avenue back to Sproul Plaza for a general assembly around 1:30 p.m. to plan for an encampment this evening, despite warnings from administrators that doing so would violate the campus code of conduct.