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Oak Grove-Valient Struggle For food Supply
Sunday 7/6/08 attempt to supply the tree sitters with food.
The university has tried to keep the tree sitters in Memorial Oak Grove surrounded and isolated since the extraction attempt on June 17-19. We have a permanent camp on the ground and organized resupply attempts every Sunday. The ground camp is a great space to organize and out reach from. Here are a few photos from earlier and then the resupply.
On Sunday 7/6 we gathered for the resupply with about fifty people. First our lawyer spoke about our legal challenges to the universities plans to cut the trees and build a gym. Then we gathered food bags and went into the street. We held hands in a prayer circle. Several people offered prayers and others spoke of their determination to feed their friends. One older Black woman spoke of her hard life as a girl picking cotton. We began to think of our friends in the trees, of those starving in many places and of all of the suffering on this planet. Many people began to cry. Then a tree sitter threw down a rope from his perch on a telephone pole. We tried to attach a bag of food but the police smashed through us. They knocked the grandmothers on the ground and cut the rope. Not to be deterred we tried a gain and again. The police did not try to stop us from trying, only from succeeding. many people were injured in the scuffles and one man was arrested. In the end we were unable to send a bag up. However our determination never faltered. One tree sitter called on us to calm off the conflict and they were running short of rope and carabeeners anyway. At the same time one helium balloon was able to to get to the tree sitter carrying a very small amount of food.
Then at the other end of the grove a cry went up. A new tree sitter had made it into the grove during the scuffle. So the day ended on a great note.
I was unable to get photos of the scuffles and attempts to resupply due to being in them myself.
Please come by the grove at any time. We need people food and donations.
On Sunday 7/6 we gathered for the resupply with about fifty people. First our lawyer spoke about our legal challenges to the universities plans to cut the trees and build a gym. Then we gathered food bags and went into the street. We held hands in a prayer circle. Several people offered prayers and others spoke of their determination to feed their friends. One older Black woman spoke of her hard life as a girl picking cotton. We began to think of our friends in the trees, of those starving in many places and of all of the suffering on this planet. Many people began to cry. Then a tree sitter threw down a rope from his perch on a telephone pole. We tried to attach a bag of food but the police smashed through us. They knocked the grandmothers on the ground and cut the rope. Not to be deterred we tried a gain and again. The police did not try to stop us from trying, only from succeeding. many people were injured in the scuffles and one man was arrested. In the end we were unable to send a bag up. However our determination never faltered. One tree sitter called on us to calm off the conflict and they were running short of rope and carabeeners anyway. At the same time one helium balloon was able to to get to the tree sitter carrying a very small amount of food.
Then at the other end of the grove a cry went up. A new tree sitter had made it into the grove during the scuffle. So the day ended on a great note.
I was unable to get photos of the scuffles and attempts to resupply due to being in them myself.
Please come by the grove at any time. We need people food and donations.
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Direct Action gets the Goods!
Go my peoples!
"No, I won't do whatcha tell me!"
Go my peoples!
"No, I won't do whatcha tell me!"
I kind of find it ironic that the banner on that walk up Bancroft Way is supposedly attacking the G8 because they are "rich countries" yet the real opposition to this project is spearheaded by the richest neighborhood in Berkeley, Panoramic Hills, where the median home price is $1,250,000, who don't like having any kind of major student activity in the area they want to turn into their suburban backyard, the UC campus.
I also find it kind of ironic that this whole tree-sit is directed against 450 staff and student-athletes whose lives are currently endangered as they work and train every day in seismically unsafe areas that this project is designed to replace with a safe space, and the fact that a good part of these student-athletes come from economically disadvantaged and/or minority backgrounds.
This whole thing is a farce and a discredit to legitimate environmental ativism.
I also find it kind of ironic that this whole tree-sit is directed against 450 staff and student-athletes whose lives are currently endangered as they work and train every day in seismically unsafe areas that this project is designed to replace with a safe space, and the fact that a good part of these student-athletes come from economically disadvantaged and/or minority backgrounds.
This whole thing is a farce and a discredit to legitimate environmental ativism.
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