Occupy Oakland General Strike - Banks Smashed Up in Afternoon, 11/2/11: photos, 1 of 2

http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/comments/lzdar/iama_oakland_general_strike_protester_that_fought/

I am the guy in the yellow helmet. I want to clear up a few misconceptions. I had no idea about the sex of the person that I tackled. And how could I? The black bloc anarchists were purposely concealing their identities. The reason why this person was tackled was because this individual was attempting to break the Whole Foods windows with her flag staff and therefor I was attempting to do a citizens arrest. Before that I had also tackled a man who had broken a bank window and had attempted to do the same thing.

Next time the anarchists should get a consensus vote before engaging in vandalism. We have a direct democracy system at the general assembly and the closest thing the anarchists could get passed was an embrace of different protesting tactics. Yet they decided to cause widespread vandalism.

Also the majority of the crowd did not just scold me, they joined me to fight back the anarchists and if you look at the videos on the net this is clearly what happened.

so, everyone else knew you tackled a woman but you? that's kind of hard to believe. when exactly did you realize that the small, curvy person you chose to tackle was female? before or after others physically had to pull you off of her? and when you finally "realize" that she was a woman, did it matter to you as a man who came into the streets with body armor ready to tackle people? be honest.

your cowardly tackling of a woman is a side issue, though

more importantly, riddle me this. since you are so interested in preventing windows from being broken, and I assume you would even call that "violence", how do you feel about people being beaten in jail (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/05/18697640.php) and shot in the head in the street (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/25/18695124.php?show_comments=1#18695134 and http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/27/18695609.php) and shot with projectiles for no reason (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/02/18696657.php and http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/06/18697932.php) ?? that's a serious question to you. are you willing to throw yourself on cops who break the law by using physical violence on non-threatening unarmed people? are broken windows more important to you than broken heads? is it just female vandals that bring out the vigilante in you?

> windows from being broken, and I assume you would even call that "violence"

Yes, it's a form of violence, by the definition of the dictionary and the history of the root word, violation. I know the Anarchists are trying to redefine the word but nobody else cares. The common understanding is that violent action includes destruction of property.

> How do you feel about people being beaten in jail...shot in the head.

It's terrible. It's outrageous. But most importantly that sort of injustice is why people are in the streets. Every perceived assault on the first amendment against peaceful assembly brings more waves of occupation across the country and the stronger we become. The police are so trigger happy that they will happily engage in my media publicity campaign to support OWS.

Look at Scot Olson, he just stood there and was shot in the face and sustained brain injury. People know what injustice looks like. And what was the result of this injustice? A 50,000 person march to shut down a Port which destroyed over a million dollars in capital! That made us look strong! Everyone supported it.

Breaking windows destroyed very little capital and made us look WEAK. Very few supported that action.

Look, I hate police violence and my role in this movement is to video capture their violence and expose them on youtube.

That is why I was wearing armor. That is why I was wearing a helmet. That's why I brought a gas mask. I brought these things to defend myself against the POLICE while they used unjustifiable violence against the protesters.

But then I saw the protest become not PEACEFUL, which means that we no longer had a constitutional right to be there. I simply left in utter disgust.

Make no mistake, the vandalism that occurred during the strike was an unequivocal media disaster for OWS and did an incredible amount of damage to the cause because it makes us loose the hearts and minds of the 99%. It fed right into the hands of the 1% and now these actions are being reverberated across the web-o-sphere. The black blocs in Berkeley should strongly consider that they have been infiltrated by law enforcement to goad towards these actions.