Except for a single taser incident, protesters interviewed Friday by Fog City Journal couldn’t recall any clashes with the authorities. One Dallas protester brought some Texas twang to the scene, located in McPherson Square, a park a few blocks from the White House. Volunteers run a small library. On Friday there was a free dinner of donated stew and raspberry cheesecake. A couple of denizens smoked dope in a pipe fashioned from a whole red apple.
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Before it was over early Sunday, demonstrators had broken into City Hall, pelted police with rocks, and were thrice turned back from establishing a new headquarters. Police responded with tear gas, flash grenades, bean bag bullets and, at times, excessive force. By days end, more than 300 people were arrested. Several injuries were reported, involving both police and protesters.
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The day was organized by Occupy SF and numerous other groups. It started before sunrise, with sometimes overlapping demonstrations focusing on corporate greed, foreclosures, war and immigration crackdowns. Demonstrators noted their connections, such as profits from building incarceration facilities. There were a few breaks, but for the most part the rain was constant.
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Protesters also decried the role that the Supreme Court case Citizens United, now two years old, has played in pulling representative democracy out of the grasp of ordinary citizens. As many as 2,000 protesters took part in all of the activities. Thirteen people were arrested in actions at Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
Threaded throughout the Financial District, Occupy affinity groups engaged in various forms of non-violent activity such as chaining themselves with lock boxes to all the entrances to Wells Fargo’s headquarters on California Street, staging a rally at the “bankers heart” sculpture at the foot of the Bank of America building, performing guerrilla theater as military personnel arresting “terrorists” (American citizens), and marching from Justin Herman Plaza throughout the financial district.
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The world community is forming, the borders that stand between nations are dissolving as the evolutionary forces of human consciousness awaken to the possibility of sustainable communities. Corporations are the usurpers who cross borders to exploit labor and the environment, buying off corrupt politicians to reap their profits, while families are being ripped apart by deportations that stop people from exercising their rights to a decent living.
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Valdez will be the stalwart of the OccupyCCSF for the next few weeks because, as he explained, finals are upon the students and the occupiers had to pack up and go study. Valdez said that he could afford to skip out on the rest of his classes and was committed to continuing the encampment “until the cops come.” He’s running a 50 foot extension cord from his tent to an outlet of Smith Hall, and so far, the campus police “have not provided resistance.” Valdez expects more students to return in January. So far, all the feedback he’s gotten during this occupation has been positive.
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The OccupySFSU students proclaimed solidarity with Occupy movements everywhere. In turn, several OccupySF activists participated in the students’ demonstration and helped set up the encampment at Malcolm X Plaza, which started its first night after the rally and march. Among the speakers was Sean Semans, who has been an OccupySF resident for weeks. He carries an 18-unit course load at SFSU. He explained that he cannot afford to miss any more school especially given the high cost of his education, so he is helping to set up the encampment at SFSU and will participate in the OccupySFSU General Assembly. Semans warned students there is a hidden cost associated with the fee increases: increases to the interest rate on unsubsidized student loans.
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