Occupy Oakland has captured the nation and even the world’s attention at times. But those times have not been for Occupy Oakland’s thoughtful direct actions or peaceful marches, but instead for the brutality of its suppression by police. October 25, November 2 and January 28 saw the strongest shows of force by the local and long-troubled Oakland Police Department, working in concert with more than a dozen other nearby agencies and wielding some of the most extreme weaponry US occupy activists have experienced. Occupy Oakland is far more than these street battles and mass arrests, but they are an important part of what shapes this movement.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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