Part 2- after election day after-march

Several of my pictures here are really dark or unclear.

It was starting to rain moderately around this time.

Most people who were arrested and taken to vans went along fairly easily, but while I watched (first 3rd of group), two people resisted. This guy was sitting, and they picked him up by the shoulders. Over by the police van, a group of five police officers were all sort of grabbing on him, and he screamed that he was being hurt, and you could clearly see an officer twisting his hand or forearm in a circle while digging into his wrist. I couldn't see why it was so difficult to just put his hands in handcuffs.
Another younger man was being carried and shoved too.

Most of the people arrested were not dressed in black attire.

Can't see what they're doing here so well, but they were grouped around and twisting his arm.

Thanks for fixing the sizing of those two, editor.

It seems like pictures turn darker when they are uploaded here, than they appear in image software.

There was no solidarity for the Jane Doe of the arrests, except for her affinity group. That sucks, especially after she was instrumental in helping to continue the march and keep people galvanized and was doing solidarity for a friend with immigrant status who she was concerned about. I heard she got out at 4am after giving up her id once she found her friend was released. Where is the fucking solidarity outside?

does anybody really know what jail solidarity means? after witnessing the quick departure of many of the detainees early thursday morning, i think not. jail solidarity means that you stand along side your fellow activists who are still inside. you can do this by refusing to give your name to the cops or by rallying outside the jail. you do this because you believe that they are being detained by a police state that knows no human rights. you do this because you know that there are individuals who for what ever reason do not have the "luxury" of giving their name. you do this because you know that there are millions of others who are imprisoned in this country simply because they are poor and brown. you do this because you know that there are people inside all over the country who are imprisoned for life, who will never get out, who will never be able to go home to their own bed or loved ones. where were you at 4:30am thursday?

I think it was a good thing to see such a number of symbolic arrests. The failure to disperse charge won't stick, because I was there, and I heard no order to disperse.
People always bicker about this, but here are my brief thoughts about strategy. There was little or no jail support because there was hardly anyone outside of the group of boxed-in people who were arrested. I was almost surprised. There were a couple of legal people, some homeless people from 6th street, and an argument even broke out with this creepy young guy wearing sunglasses at night going into the strip show, who said he voted for Bush and that Afghanistan had attacked us and we never attacked Afghanistan. I stayed taking pictures, and I could have gone to stand for hours by the jail, but I no longer knew anybody there in the encircled group, and I don't think anyone would really appreciate my standing out there. This was not a situation where there were the tens of thousands of participants like normal, in the vicinity.
While I don't like the idea of voluntary arrest, and I bet lots of the actually arrested people don't either, but they just thought it was worth it if they were unlucky - here is what I think people should do on a purely tactical level during these activist 'breakaway' strolls. The group should act like the wily slime mold. The 'black bloc' tactic is to 'tighten up', which can be useful if some individual is about to do something really risky and needs everyone else to stand around as camouflage, but police are adaptible too. It is also very important to realize that you don't have to get away with something during every action, and often it's really not worth your time to deal with the arrest complications. You can achieve a lot by just being there.
The slime mold has an unusual taxonomic classification, where it isn't grouped with other fungus, and it isn't an animal. It doesn' t have a brain, but it has a very complex behavior where different parts of its body can be moving in different directions, but it still stays as a coherent whole, except when it gets so big when it has consumed material and grown, that parts can split. It compacts together to eat when it finds food on the forest floor, and when it has run out of food and is searching for more, different veinlike strands of its body spread out. If one end of the body finds something, a chemical signal causes the rest of the body to reverse direction and move in that direction. If it becomes really dry, it metamorphoses and sends up stalks with dry spores which can blow away to other locations.
http://herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/FunFacts/slimemold.htm
i.e. sometimes it makes sense not to bunch up so the police predictably box in everyone.

However, when we are an arbitrary thrown together group without enough time to plan and not large enough to stay strong in segments, this is what happens. I agree that multiple strategies should take presedence, but when we were spread out, the police were able to block us off from one another, therefore shutting down the possibility of a slime mold strategy because while we presented the option of then going on somwhere else and causeing trouble in traffic, most wanted instead to stay with the larger group and cut wround the police to reconnect.

Finally, none of the arrests were symbolic or voluntary. They just happened. And Jane Doe became Jane Doe not for symbolism but out of direct and realistic concern to have solidarity with a comrade. While jail solidarity can exist for many of the above articulated reasosns by the other poster, in this case, it was to support her comrade and stay with him as long as she could. No symbolism neccessary.

http://www.zombietime.com/sf_rally_november_3_2004/

Here is another consideration. This guy's photos are funny, but we should know who he is. He is actually a UC Berkeley area person, but how do you know how photos are being used? Video cameras are essential at demonstrations, but in the hands of participants.