Thurs/Friday pictures

The day after the escalation, I got together with a group of friends who agree that people must take accountability when their government tries to develop an empire, like the British or Spanish empire. San Francisco's downtown provides the best physical space for expressing this within hundreds of miles because it is a financial capital, and a handful of wealthy people clearly control the government right now, and it is very close to not even being a 'representative democracy'.

Our group places little value in symbolic arrest. We went downtown, and meandered through the streets. We first saw lots of groups of people in different intersections around 7am. Pacifist and religious groups locked themselves into a number of intersections. While the police spent several hours arresting the people doing nonviolent civil disobedience and voluntary pacifist arrest, we went to some other intersections and stood in lines. When police came, we went away. We stood in 4rd Street & Market by Old Navy, 4th and Mission by the Metreon, and 3rd and Mission by the art museum for 10-20 minutes each.

We observed a couple cases of violent assaults by drivers. A driver of a Silver Jetta with license 4EFL372 plowed into the group of Future Doctor's for Peace, and a few fell over the hood, and one man was stuck clinging to the hood and windshield as the jetta accelerated down the street wildly swerving. This could be attempted murder because more than half the time, someone would be severely wounded or killed by this, and there is no justification, even if your car has medical students standing around. A woman in a truck did the same thing. There was also a number of vehicles with flag regalia or people shouting right wing slogans who were spinning their wheels sideshow style, or making intimidating moves. A few times, people got out to assault people standing around in the street. Mostly, people were very polite and went home or stopped cars.

In the afternoon, I decided to go with the bike not bombs group. Conflicts with drivers were fewer. There still seemed to be a steady flow of cars trying to get into downtown, even though this situation had been going on for hours by this point. One or two people moved the abandoned furniture that you see all around San Francisco into the streets behind the group. By Pier 27 where the police were bringing arrested lock-down people to be 'processed' in a limousine barn, the group stopped. A rider set his bicycle down on the sidewalk next to people who had been released from jail who were sprawled on the ground waiting and eating. An officer took the bike away and wheeled it behind a stretch-humvee that was about 40 ft long. After everyone screamed, they finally gave it back.
The grouped returned towards civic center upon hearing that a group was being arrested at 7th and Mission. A large group of anarchists turned out to be encircled there, and we couldn't figure out what had happened. A rider started to write a word starting with 'b' in the dust on a muni bus and an officer jumped out and arrested her for this. I returned to civic center after this.

Meeting up with some friends again, we went along with the ANSWER march. A large group of 7-10000 went north and circled Union Square. A right winger threw food off his balcony at people. By this time, I had hardly seen any property damage around the city at all, and no one did anything objectionable at Union square. People walked towards the 2nd street onramp to the freeway. Police blocked this, and there was lots of running around by police chasing people through parking lots. Police started hitting people at a ramp near embarcadero under the bridge, and when someone yelled that tear gas was being released, there was a short stampede back. People went back down the hill towards the transbay bus ramp, and a few people ran up it, even though it is a really long ramp, but they turned and ran into the bus station. Police encircled the calmest and most peaceful part of the group while the more radical people walked back to Market. The police let the boxed in group leave, and they went to Market and were trailed by police back to Civic Center, where I left.

The next day, I went to my teaching job, then went to the NION protest at 5pm. The crowd had a lot of young people in high school and their early 20s, and very few people dressed in black attire or bandannas, and they didn't seem very aggressive by any means. Not listening to speeches, I joined the group after they started walking down Market street. The police were there in large numbers and made continual announcements that people leaving the sidewalk would be arrested. Near Hayes, for some reason people turned off the sidewalk - some are thinking that the police turned the front of the march there. Halfway down Hayes street by Grove, a semi truck was parked on the sidewalk taking up the entire space except for 6 inches, and a sign said the sidewalk was closed. A police line was behind marchers, and also blocked the crosswalk back at the intersection, so people stepped around the truck on the sidewalk. At this point, Special Operations Chief R. Bruce stepped out and everyone saw a line of police form to the west side blocking passage down Hayes, and then a line formed to the east blocking a return to Market St. A few onlookers were boxed in as well, but not so many. The charge for this set of 300 people was 'unlawful assembly'. This could bankrupt the city, because when everyone gets the cash payments that usually get awarded for false arrest situations like this, it could really add up to quite a lot of money. A lot of the rest of the group (600+) continued down another street and were arrested on Franklin for stepping into the street.