12.31.2012
12.30.2012
12.29.2012
What Is Jail Support Part 2
What Is Jail Support - Part 2
I knew it involved raising money for bail and protesting
the arrests of occupiers, and sometimes I chalkupied the New Orleans sidewalks
for people in other occupations who were getting arrested for drawing on
sidewalks with chalk. I knew members of other occupy groups headed to the
physical jail where their comrades were detained and sent out calls for
donations via Twitter. Recently I'd seen tweets about jail support that
included the hashtag #casseroles but I didn't know they were pots and pans used
for making noise, nor did I know that we actually had casseroles at Occupy The
Stage. I thought it might be a code for carrying money to give to a bondsman
because I'd seen "casseroles" hurriedly misspelled as or
"cashroles" once or twice.
My little knowledge of what jail support involved stemmed
from the fact that there had only ever been one arrest at Occupy NOLA when the
encampment was evicted on December 6, 2011.
Someone told me later that jail support was letting the
person know you cared and letting the police know you weren't going to tolerate
an occupy arrest, so I guess for me jail support started the second the police
car drove by the Occupy The Stage warehouse and Justin shouted "I'm
going to the clink" from the back seat. I screamed his name over and
over, chasing the squad car to the intersection before it turned the corner and
he was gone. Seven days later, when he was released, Justin told me I'd hurt
the officer's ears.
Both my Android batteries were full. I'd just been on
GlobalRev filming the arrival of the Occupy Caravan.
So I stood outside the warehouse with Occupiers from the
Caravan and let myself cry. The Occupy Caravan was staying in New Orleans for
two nights and we'd spent weeks preparing for their visit at the Occupy The
Stage warehouse. After occupying his own stage with the Playback Theatre
Troupe, Justin had gone down the street to feed somebody's cat. I'd known
something was wrong when he hadn't come back. He'd been livestreaming too, and
I knew his battery was probably almost if not all the way dead.
If anyone else had gotten arrested, our leaderless movement
would have looked to Justin. But he was gone and I hadn't been able to run fast
enough to catch up to the police car, but even worse, I hadn't been there and
didn't know why he'd been arrested.
I have myself three minutes to cry, not because he'd been
arrested, but because he was going to be in OPP, a jail with one of the slowest
booking systems in America, and we'd only been dating two months and I hadn't
told him I loved him yet.
I had to explain to everyone who didn't know me that I
wasn't going to be hysterical all night and that I was screaming and crying
because I had never told him I loved him and I wanted him to go to jail knowing
I loved him. I met people for the first time as they tried to calm me down, and
in order to prove I could be rationale, I said we should start jail support.
A few younger members of Occupy The Stage were drunk and
suggested going to the jail immediately to raise hell, but I thought about the
action we had planned for the next day and told them to focus on not getting
arrested. I made a WePay link and started asking for donations on Twitter.
Around 3am, A took me to Central Lock-up but Justin hadn't
been booked yet, and nobody there could tell us why he'd been arrested.
"He'll never be out by noon," I told A. "How the fuck are we
going to have this flash concert without him?"
"This is a test. Of all of us. We have to step up.
You have to step up," A told me in the dark hallway of Orleans Parish
Prison
I stayed up all night, glad to have the action to focus
on, hoping he'd be out in time for the end of it, fielding text messages from
people who only came around when trouble reared its head. "I don't know why he's been arrested and
don't speculate about unknown illegal activities via text," I actually
replied before adding, "Please come to the action tomorrow."
The action a Flash Concert and "Rebel without a
Single Cause" march was something the direct action working group had been
planning since before the Caravan had contacted us and included at least one
band, a burlesque troupe, transportation of the original wooden stage from the
warehouse to Washington Square, tentmonsters, a route so secret even I didn't
know it, an unpublicized start time, and PBS.
The sun came up, and with it arrived text messages from a
woman who had not been involved with Occupy of late. As a member of the Digital
Media Working Group, she was concerned that I was collecting bail donations
when I didn't know why he'd been arrested. She wanted me to take down the WePay
link.
In the gas station next to the warehouse, I asked several
members of the Occupy Caravan to hold an emergency GA, and they reached
unanimous consensus regarding Jail Support solidarity. The We Pay link stayed up.
Although I am not very good about not giving fucks
regarding things I give a fuck about, I somehow managed to ignore the nagging
of that particular member for the first few days of Jail Support.
I called the people from PBS (they were going to film the Caravan members at the march) and posted the location of
the Flash Concert on the Occupy The Stage website. It was only because Justin
actually hand-wrote phone numbers in a spiral notebook that I, along with
Robert, were able to contact everyone involved and tell them we needed the
Flash Concert and march to be extra great because Justin was in jail.
The Willow Family Band met the sixty or so people gathered
in Washington Square at noon. I hadn't slept. Robert would lead the march. JJ
set up the rolling dog PA system, and as I began livestreaming the performance, it dawned on me that over half the people
attending had absolutely no idea where
City Hall was or where the march would go.
"Please follow one of the other
streamers for an objective feed of this march," I told my live audience.
And then I started a Mic Check for the first time ever. I'd always had a voice but kept myself reserved
due to streaming, but not that day. "And I'm gonna take this march, all
the way, to central lockup! No Justin No Peace."
The march was like a parade that
traveled through the quarter and CBD, stopping at the courthouse and bank and
City Hall, where we mic checked the mayor. I'll always remember Robert leading
the march that day, and how we looked at one another for a second and I felt
like he understood more than anyone else what Justin usually did and what we
had to do because he wasn't there. That kept me sane. The march was ending at
City Hall when an Occupy The Stage member mic checked Mayor Landrieu asking him
to free Justin.
That was when Robert received the
phone call from legal. Justin had been booked and we needed 500 to pay the
lawyer. Under the assumption that I'd go pay the money and he'd be released, I left the march, heading to the lawyer's office.
He wasn't getting released. Justin had two warrants issued by
Baton Rouge for resisting an officer and disturbing the peace on March 12. He had been
arrested for possession of marijuana on Tuesday, June 19 (he wasn't booked
until the 20th, but it was around 10:30 when he was arrested) and was being
held on those warrants. He was released on his own recognizance for the
possession charge but Baton Rouge wanted him transferred there.
What Is Jail Support Part 1
Part 1
March 12,
2012.
"They're arresting Justin!" Of the several members of Occupy
The Stage who'd traveled from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to protest on the
steps of the Louisiana State Capital, only two had phones that day. For a
moment, the high-pitched voice makes me think it's eighteen-year old L, but
it's R. He's used up the battery on my portable hot-spot and can't livestream,
but he has my digital camera and starts recording.
"Get
badge numbers and ask the officer if he's being detained or arrested," I
tell him.
I'm stuck
working from home in New Orleans. Unable to livestream this action, I'd given
them my equipment, phone number and had stayed logged into R's livestream
channel all afternoon - watching Occupy Mic-Check Jindal - until the stream
went down. Now, fingers banging various combinations of Occupy Baton Rouge
(#OBR #OccupyBR Occupy Baton Rouge), I search Twitter but find nothing.
"Tell
anyone there with a smartphone to take pictures or record it," I say.
I've cried watching people I've never met get arrested, and now, someone I know
may be getting arrested. After watching Occupy arrests in places like DC,
Oakland, Los Angeles, and New York I recognize the reassurance of raw
documentation. I want to see him not getting hurt with my own eyes and know
whether the police have zip ties. Yes, seeing zip ties will be better than not knowing if zip ties are present.
"I
want to know what the charge is," I hear R shouting. "Holman
6071," he tells me. Before his phone battery dies, R finally tells me
Justin broke free and ran.
I realize I've
lost all communication with Occupy The Stage.
A Twitter
search for "Baton Rouge" with no hashtag returns a link to a video
student recorded and uploaded to YouTube.
In it,
members of Occupy The Stage hold a banner on the capital steps as Justin,
wearing a suit jacket and his fedora, jumps down the capital steps, his
authoritative voice gaining momentum. "We are bearing witness to the
single greatest social correction the world has ever knowing...and it's about
damn time" he shouts before police grab him from behind.
Bystanders
chant "Freedom of Speech!"
Nobody
yells "Fuck the police" as he slips out of his coat and practically
somersaults to the bottom the steps before he sprints away. Members of OTS dressed
as tentmonsters (who'd been banned from the steps for being a
"hazard") wait in the parking lot demanding badge numbers.
Before
long, R goes live from his computer back in the blue bus they traveled in. Only
then, when I hear him ask for a cigarette before being interviewed, do I learn
Justin is safe. It will be a month and a half before I fall in love with
him.
That
evening, I go to the Occupy The Stage warehouse. By this time, photographs and details are
circulating in the Louisiana Occupy Facebook groups, so I've pieced together
most of what happened. Even though I still feel a bit like an outsider there
because I wasn't around for the beginning of Occupy NOLA, the warehouse is my
favorite place. It's where I brought the Mardi Gras tentmonster costume I made
and where activists paint signs, make banners, and play music. It's a location
that's evolved after the encampment was raided on December 13. As
everyone hovers around the media center and community kitchen, R hands me a
plate of food and returns my camera.
When I
download the contents of my media card, I see the photograph R didn't upload to
Facebook. Justin's bare chest displays a hand-sized bruise on his
sternum.
"You
have my phone number," I tell him when we're alone. "I want you to know you
can call me at any time. If you see police, I'll be there. My Droid battery can
last 32 hours now."
He nods,
but something tells me he won't call me. He doesn't know I've seen the bruise,
and if he did, I imagine he'd still view my offer as a favor and politely
refuse.
If it
wasn't for Justin, I may not have begun livestreaming. Since I'd started going
to Duncan Plaza when eviction was imminent, most occupiers had been skeptical
or too harried to explain when and where the Digital Media Working Group met.
Having missed the first month of Occupy NOLA, I was used to hanging around,
volunteering to use the stopwatch app on my Android at GAs. Usually someone
would give me the number of the legal team and write down my email, and I'd
upload all my photographs to a Tumblr blog and tweet them. It's not that anyone
was unfriendly; the most committed activists seemed exhausted from the day to
day maintenance of the encampment (For a long time, the fact that I never slept
in Duncan Plaza would be one of my two Occupy regrets).
I'd shown
up for a GA one day in late November, but a cluster of students told me most
members were at a facilitation workshop elsewhere. The kids who usually begged
for left-overs on Decatur bummed cigarettes as a fight broke out on the
pavilion and a few people who seemed like regulars at the camp quickly de-escalated
it. The only guy who regularly hit on me at Duncan offered to give me a
private tour of his tent. After chatting with a reporter from The Gambit for a
few minutes, I learned that he was just hanging out but didn't think the raid
would happen that night.
A few
blocks away, the Saints played a home game in the Superdome. A Twitter search
revealed the @OccupyNOLAGA Twitter account's trollish descriptions of rape and
prostitution at Duncan. At that time, the account holder handled four accounts
that regularly tweeted distorted information or outright lies about activities
at the encampment. None of the people I was used to seeing at Duncan were
around that day. The students from the GA were leaving. Once again, I felt like
I'd missed everything.
That was
when I met Justin. He had his own cigarettes and was drinking coffee on the
hill, but he invited me to sit with him and showed me a photo album of his
carpentry. His craftsmanship impressed me. Somehow I told him I didn't drink
and he said the same. He was the first person who sat down and talked to me and
didn't ask me to do anything or mistake me for someone else. At the time, this
frustrated me because I was determined to try to help.
"Is
there electricity here today?" I asked.
"Why?"
"It
doesn't matter. I can livestream but my Android battery doesn't last very
long."
His
suspicion turned to a smile. "There's going to be a live performance
over there in a little while," he said. "You should stay and
livestream that."
Then he
was gone.
I'd heard
about the Occupy The Stage performances in Duncan, and Justin said I could
stream one that night if I felt like it before he rushed off. Little did I know
I had just met the man who'd built the wooden stage upon which a burlesque
troupe had stripped in front of City Hall.
Hours
later, in the dark, I filmed a musicians performing on the stage as NOPD walked
through Duncan Plaza issuing eviction notices. Then my battery ran out.
That
Android battery only lasted about thirty minutes when I used the Ustream app
and live tweeted at the same time. I knew I would lose my job if I was involved
in Occupy, and as I pulled on my winter socks in the wee hours of December 6, I
checked Twitter and saw that #TOYM Team Occupy Your Mom was in NOLA. I quickly
tweeted to @ghostpickles, explaining which Twitter accounts were intentionally
tweeting false information, and then Korgasm_ went live and NOPD destroyed the
encampment.
I
wouldn't see Justin again until MLK.
Occupy
NOLA's digital media team seemed to collapse after the eviction, and I'd
occasionally receive emails or texts about actions. I livestreamed the MLK
March and Occupy The Stage brought a mobile PA system, broadcasting Dr. King's
speech through the city as we marched to the Federal Reserve where one protester
already stood. I knew the fedora even with the Guy Fawkes mask. During Mardi
Gras, I heard through word of mouth that Occupy was going to be in the Krewe de
Vieux parade. The NOPD brutality of the 2011 Eris parade had inspired me to
livestream, and I headed out to the parade with my Droid, hoping that Occupy
would in fact be in a parade.
I saw the
Expect Us signs before I saw them. That's how it would happen for a while; I'd
go out looking for Occupy and I'd find Occupy The Stage.
They
invited me to a Mardi Gras revolution bash, and I made a solidarity stencil to decorate a
tentmonster, and Justin showed me how to make a master stencil so I wouldn't
ruin the only one I had. My boyfriend and I broke up for reasons
unrelated to the Occupy movement.
Occupy
NOLA still had regular actions then, and I started going to The Direct Action
Working Group and volunteering to make flyers for actions. Then I'd hang flyers
up around town, put on my utility belt, and go find the action. Whenever I was
livestreaming I'd end up next to Justin because he'd be leading the march, or
everyone wouldn't remember the words to a chant, and he'd start one. Before the
F29 BP action, he explained the way COREXIT can cause an average camping tent
to mutate into a tentmonster.
By March,
Occupy NOLA had gotten more organized, and this was certainly in part due to
the central location of Occupy The Stage. They started inviting me over for
dinner at night.
After the
Baton Rouge incident I kept my camera on Justin as much as I could. The
photograph with the bruise would appear in my photo archive sometimes, along
with the concern that one day he'd be arrested. So I kept my camera on
him. One Friday in March, I worked from home, exhausted, when I noticed
that Occupy The Roads was headed from Mobile Alabama to Baton Rouge. As we
exchanged tweets, I learned that they didn't know there was an Occupy NOLA to
stop at and gave them location of the warehouse.
On March 31, Occupy The Stage
brought an enormous banner to the Police Brutality protest which hundreds of
people attended. That was the first time my livestream was re-broadcast on
Global Revolution TV. A brass band played "I'll fly away" as I caught
up with the front of the march and Justin. "Please learn how to hold the
camera," someone typed in the chat and I realized I'd been dancing. I
slowed down, realizing that for a moment, all my livestreaming stress had
disappeared and the march had been fun. That was when I realized I had a crush on him.
By April,
talk of going to Occupy DC was in the air, and a few people from New Orleans
had already headed that way. I'd gotten my crowd anxiety under control enough
to entertain the possibility of going myself. It never occurred to me to go
with other people. I figured I'd travel alone with my dog the way I always did.
One night at the warehouse, R and I were sitting on the stage in the dark and
he told me Justin was also going to DC.
"Then
I can't go," I confessed.
I was
afraid that the crush I had on him would blur my judgment and he'd get arrested
or I'd get arrested or something bad would happen. Every time there was an
action I buried that crush deep inside myself when I ended up next to him, and
I buried it deeper still when I livestreamed performances at Occupy The
Stage. The crush could not exist.
But we
did go to Washington DC in the car and slept in front of Bank of America. That
was where I streamed an arrest for the first time and where, while
making stencils, I told Justin he could keep an exacto blade my ex
had given me. "A recent ex?" he asked. So he learned I was
single because we both made stencils.
... to be continued.
Solidarity Jeremy Hammond
Thoughts on The Other Bradley Manning: Jeremy Hammond Faces Life Term for WikiLeaks and Hacked Stratfor Emails
I'm thrilled to see Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (representing Julian Assange), on Democracy Now explaining exactly why Jeremy Hammond should not be in jail.
"So, here, look at this situation. You have the judge; her husband has been hacked. Her husband’s email is accessible. And she is sitting on the case of the very person who they allege hacked into that email account. Well, the rules seem to me very clear in federal court, that if there’s any appearance of impropriety, appearance of—you know, of a closeness to the case, that basically you have to recuse yourself from being a judge in the case. You have to do it automatically, even if the—even if the defendant doesn’t make a motion. Think about it" (Ratner).
I can't help but wish Jeremy wasn't referred to as
"The Other" anybody. He's Jeremy Hammond.
It's
sad that more people don't know who he is, and hopefully the title of
the article will raise awareness about Hammond's situation and the
completely unfair bail denial. Maybe then we will finally live in a
world where as many people are outraged about
this situation (Wikileaks, Stratfor, Hammond, Manning, Judge Preska,
etc) as they are about whatever NFL issue people are currently upset
about.
* I don't even know if there is some NFL issue going on at the moment, but I'm sure some football player will get suspended for something soon just in case people need something to GIVE A FUCK ABOUT.
* I don't even know if there is some NFL issue going on at the moment, but I'm sure some football player will get suspended for something soon just in case people need something to GIVE A FUCK ABOUT.
"A genuinely conscious web developer, Jeremy Hammond is accused of using his computer savvy to attack conservative groups and State operators. He is being charged with providing Wikileaks the documents for their latest Stratfor release" ~ #FreeHammond
I hope more people will visit Free Hammond Dot Org and learn about how they can support Jeremy.
2012 Moments
One of the moments I'll remember most from 2012, maybe the most, happened a few days before this video when I was thrown out of court for looking at the man I loved. I will describe this in detail soon.
12.26.2012
12.22.2012
12.14.2012
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