Open letter to the cowardly Berkeley City Council!!!

I’m soooooo bitterly disappointed the Berkeley City Council cancelled their regular meeting for tonite, I want to fire them ALL!

How dare you, our formerly progressive (or is that just a right-wing rumor?) Berkeley City Council, in these times, when your police department that is accountable to YOU, when your police officers are acting so viciously and making decisions that incite violence & hurt people, when the people of Berkeley are standing up demanding to be heard, demanding change, you choose not to be accessible and available?

Berkeley City Council: you should have called an immediate emergency town hall meeting to discuss how to represent and amplify the voices of the people. The Berkeley City Council should be meeting daily with these people willing to make this a major part of their daily lives, to work out a plan for change, a plan to address the blatant and not so blatant racism that thrives here, the fuckin militarization of our little police force in this small town.

This is the time for city council to be present and involved: NOT cancelling meetings.

I am also deeply angered by the view some council people are publicly projecting when they say "a few violent outliers hijacked the protest and its message".

What? This is NOT the truth but the mantra of the police and media. Why are some council members repeating it?

The truth is it is the police that highjack protests and instigate 'violence' in this country. Didn’t council see the report that just came out today???

People! Council! These police are armed by fuckin violent fuckin surplus military paraphernalia.

Fuckin tear gas is a weapon of war. But, so shamefully, there are also militarized uniforms (they look like hollywood sci fi monsters), weapons (you should see the guns on these guys, the heft of their clubs, the grotesque helmets), and equipment - like those fuckin helicopters and other vehicles they use to attempt to intimidate & silence people.

We all know that the military has been pumping their surplus weapons of war into our communities since the late 1990's. And this past year, the Obama administration granted billions of dollars worth of military-grade weapons & military training to cities and towns across the u.s.ofa., more than any other year previously.

These are war weapons designed to conquer on foreign lands, to turn on (supposedly) other armed (but not equally) soldier men; NOT civilians for gods sakes - although we all know they are used against civilians world-wide.

But now these military-grade everything are here in Berkeley being used against us, the people.

Please do not ever, never ever ever appropriate the actions of any protestors throwing bricks or breaking windows by calling them “outliers” or “violent”.

I’ll deal with the “violent” first: how can you call someone who throws a brick ‘violent’ while someone who shoots canisters of tear gas after attempting to slam clubs into peoples' guts, you would call what? Sweet, thoughtful, level-headed, intelligent kind people?

Furthermore, there is a continuum of reasons someone might be inspired to throw a brick. Some could be protestors who think for themselves and have chosen to respond to murder in this way.

Others might be police provocateurs because how else can police, in this day and age of electronic and instant media, justify attacking unfuckinarmed civilians not to mention exponentially increase their own hazard paychecks?

Some could be the very young who still know things are fucked up and have not been conditioned yet to value especially the corporate property giants over expressing their anger, rage, frustration in ways society has deemed “violent, illegal” while society allows and even pays those very corporations to inundate young minds with products and values that turn them into uncaring, unfeeling, unimaginative, life-destroying clods in the toxic waste of those corporations.

You understand, Council, this very obsession you and your police are showing about “property” is EXACTLY what we are in the streets protesting! Some of us have woken up to see that LIVES are what should be valued – human life, plant life, animal life, life of the Mother Earth.

You are leading the police to value property over all else. I know we were all born into a system that both 1) protects, projects & upholds property to the highest value, and 2) arms macho violent men with horrific weapons and training on how to subdue, dominate, control, and kill your own people, so they can make sure property is protected at all costs of human life.

It should be the job of the police to clear the path for the voice and actions of the people.

What would it cost your police to remove obstacles and ensure that the voices of these protestors are heard? No, this seems to be too difficult for them. They could be shutting down streets, diverting traffic, stopping cars, making sure the people have the space to project this voice.

What do you care if the streets are shut down, if the freeway is shut down, the trains are shut down? This is the WHOLE POINT of protesting these racist, sexist, violent, anti-life society, institutions, corporations, and times: to SHUT IT DOWN!

And they are shut down for how fuckin long? An hour? Two hours? Four and a half hours? We can allow a young man’s swiftly cooling body to lay on pavement bleeding out for 4.5 hours but we cannot tolerate protestors standing a freeway closing it down for 20 minutes?

And who’s values are fucked up here?

Oh, but we are supposed to tolerate and accept four hundred fuckin years of genocide, violence, oppression, 400 years of military wars minus the 17 total years we were not officially at war, not to mention the wholesale destruction of our very Mother Earth but we can not tolerate a couple hours of SHUT IT DOWN!

If you were meeting tonite, I would tell you to consider something. I know you all would probably be struggling to project a very blank face and inside you’ll be saying “that’ll never happen”. Your heads might even ever so slightly shake a little “no”. You’d probably be struggling to keep your eyes pinned forward and not rolling around your heads.

But I would tell you to remember that is how rich white men in power have ALWAYS responded to deep social issues the people were demanding to change. “No, of course not, slavery will NEVER be abolished”. (Okay so it hasn’t been really, but the certain form of slavery they were protecting has been made illegal). “No ridiculous! Womyn will NEVER get the right to vote.” NO NO NO.

Well I’m warning you to put those responses on hold; to press the pause button; to lean forward and listen intently and intensely, & to prepare yourselves to be the courageous warriors our times demand of you and all of us.

WE WANT POLICE DISARMED!!! And then DEMILITARIZED at the very least, and DISMANTLED the way they are. We want a real, human, compassionate, loving force that will honor and protect the life of humans and all life on the Mother Earth, beginning with Berkeley.

We need all of YOU to stand up against this police violence, police murder, racism. Period. Our community and individuals will NEVER be safe as long as macho, violent armed men and their mimics are walking amongst us.

And lastly: NOBODY hijacked our message: it is loud and clear: BLACK LIVES MATTER! & SHUT IT DOWN!