June 17, 2004
Reclaim the Commons Wrapup Part Two
By Starhawk
Around noon, the cops suddenly decide they've had enough. Perhaps it is the presence of the anarchist marching band, a small group of drummers in black and punk regalia -- who are doing nothing more menacing than drumming, but who look to cops like they might someday be planning to do something just as Saddam Hussein looked to Bush as if he might someday be eager to acquire those elusive WMDs. Kirk and I try to gether a quick spokescouncil in the street, both to decide how to respond and because a circle of people sitting in the road would be a deterrent to a police sweep of the anarchists down the way, but the cops move in before we can get people to form up and hold the space, and push everyone off but us. We are left, sitting together, looking up at the boots and knees of the cops that surround us.
"If you don't move, you'll be arrested," they warn us.
We look at each other. It's so tempting! I'm tired. I'm tired of marching and chanting, my throat is sore and my drum arm is wilting and I'm really, really tired of trying to get people's attention and get them to do things and feeling responsible. And here is this kind policeman offering me a way out! But then we sigh and shake our heads. Something tells us both that we need to stay on the street -- if only because so many other experienced people have already been arrested. We get up and walk over to the sidewalk, just in time to see a line of cops charge the demonstrators further down who are gathered around the anarchist drum corp. The cops are swinging batons and beating somebody with real force, and shoving the happy, dancing, peaceful demonstrators onto the sidewalk. A few newspaper stands get knocked over, and the cops form a line on the street. Some of the protestors are yelling at the cops, and the cops are doing their best to provoke a riot.
"Shut up you fucking bitch," I hear a cop say to the young woman next to me. His name is Officer Johnson and he has a little smirk on his face. I'm in between, trying to calm people, when a young woman with wild red hair jumps in front and begins a wailing, wordless, magical song, spinning a spell of sound that changes the energy. I've never seen her before, and I don't know where she's come from, but she knows how to work magic. Some of the Pagan Cluster join her and begin drumming, using the newspaper stands as drums. Much of the black bloc is now crushed against the side of the building, blocking the sidewalk where conference go-ers continue to thread their way through, pushing between the protestors. Nobody molests them -- but had anyone in our crowd actually been violent or dangerous, the police move would now have pushed them directly in the way of their supposed targets.
We decide to march out, and do, after awakening the drummers from their trance. We march around the conference center to 3rd and Howard, and then decide to disperse and regroup back at the Convergence Center for an impromptu spokescouncil meeting. A group of us grab a quick sandwich at a donut shop where half the police force is also refreshing themselves, and head back.
At the meeting, we decide to rest for an hour or so, then join the Reclaim the Streets anti-G8 march that begins at 5 pm, at UN Plaza near City Hall. I grab a short nap in the Wellness Center, which has come into full use, a magical, quiet, healing space just off the big meeting room. Entering it is truly like entering another world -- with people dozing on the carpets, incense and soft music filling the atmosphere, a few people receiving massage and others curled on soft couches. I lie down and an angelic woman gives me a beautiful foot massage as I drift into sleep for an hour or so. The Wellness Center was a brilliant idea and I hope we do it for other actions -- a great model of care and self-care, that maybe counteracts the less exemplary example of all the key organizers who are overworked, overstretched, and pushed far beyond our limits.
I wake up with enough energy to go out to the march. Reclaim the Streets has gathered at UN Plaza, further up Market Street. The march is supposed to be a Mutant's Ball in honor of biotech and the G8, but few people have had the leisure or energy to construct costumes. A couple hundred of us start off, with the loud, thumping sound system pulled on a bike cart, in a festive mood. I am hanging toward the back, partly to keep away from the sound system which is too loud for what's left of my already faulty hearing, and partly because I'm tired and fortunately, not responsible for anything on this march. The march attempts to turn up Hyde Street into the Tenderloin, but a line of cops push us back. We continue down Market Street, until at 5th and Market we run into a solid line of cops.
I'm walking with Joan, another middle-aged woman like myself who is part of Sonoma County Greenbloc, and I pull her to the side and quickly scan the scene in case the cops are planning to surround and arrest all of us -- something the San Francisco police are fond of doing. We head to the sidewalk on the south side of the street, and move back along Market. Sure enough, a second line of cops has us trapped from behind. We go up to one of the officers and ask politely if we can leave. He tells us 'no'. At this point we have heard no warning, no order to disperse. I look around for another exit, don't find one. Then suddenly the line in front of us moves away, to close in on the demonstrators still in the middle of the street. We quickly slip past, and hear an announcement over the police bullhorn:
"Do not attempt to break through police lines, or you will be met by police batons. You are under arrest."
We wait and watch. At this point, the police have thoroughly blocked Market Street. Busses are backed up, and a big traffic jam paws and snorts behind their barricades. The march would have passed through in fifteen minutes: they continue to keep the street blocked for five hours as they slowly book something like 150 protestors. I was glad we'd escaped -- we had a whole day of ecoprojects planned for the next day, and never enough experienced gardeners.
We watch and wait. The sun sets, and it's getting cold. Food Not Bombs arrives and tosses sandwiches into the trapped crowd. We mill around, talking to our other friends who have escaped the net. A number of our friends who were arrested in the morning are already out of jail -- most have fortunately escaped being arrested again. Finally a few of us go to get dinner and start the spokescouncil meeting, another necessary task, where we can arrange jail support and solidarity.
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Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising and eight other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality. She teaches Earth Activist Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills, and works with the RANT trainer's collective, www.rantcollective.org that offers training and support for mobilizations around global justice and peace issues.
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