12 arrested in raid of occupied Oakland home

12.29.11 - 6:02 pm | Rebecca Bowe |

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A crowd gathers outside the foreclosed home on 10th Street in West Oakland

Guardian photo by Shawn Gaynor

There were 12 arrests in West Oakland today, Dec. 29, after police raided a foreclosed home on 10th Street that Occupy Oakland activists had taken over to use as housing for the homeless and meeting space, according to a press release just issued by Causa Justa :: Just Cause, a housing and immigrant rights organization based in Oakland and S.F.

Here's a link to live footage shot earlier today: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19454451

Organizers are asking supporters to contact the Oakland Police Department and demand the release of those in custody, the press release noted.

Activists took over the Fannie Mae-owned vacant property on Dec. 6, on the National Day of Action, "as a call to stop fraudulent lending practices and illegal evictions by banks," according to CJJC.

Activists provided two reasons for taking over the property:"To demand that Fannie Mae turn it into low-income housing," and "In support of the Ramirez family, whose home in East Oakland was improperly foreclosed on by Fannie Mae in May of 2011. Bank of America acting on behalf of Fannie Mae sold the Ramirez home while the bank was supposed to still be working with them. The family is now renting the home they once owned."

Occupy Oakland

Comments

Were they or were they not breaking the law?

That's the only question worth asking and yet you did not ask it.

Posted by Anonymous on Dec. 29, 2011 @ 7:11 pm

Anonymous,

why assume that laws have any moral authority?

Posted by Michael W. on Dec. 30, 2011 @ 4:17 pm

So thinking that you're right justifies an illegal act?

In that case, if I think I'm right, can I come and "occupy" your house, eat your food and shtup your wife?

Posted by Anonymous on Dec. 31, 2011 @ 8:41 am

it's not illegal to have sex

it's not illegal to have sex with someone else's wife

Posted by probably a hipster on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 8:25 pm

You bet your ass they were

You bet your ass they were breaking the law. They committed breaking and entering, of the abandoned house. As they broke and entered, with the intent to commit a felonious act, which was the plotting and conspiracy to disrupt operations of the Oakland shipping yard, and lay siege to the properties of the Oakland Shipping Yard, thereby commiting a felonious intent to commit unlawful detention of the workers located inside the shipping yard by keeping them trapped in a bounded area against their will. I'd say the occupiers most definitely broke the law. I am just as angry about the state of things as the rest of America, but write your elected officials to pressure the Justice Department to prosecute the crook's that ripped America off. You may not use your "movement," as an excuse to cause property damages, trespass, and worst of all shut down the Oakland Port preventing the hard working long-shoremen and truck drivers from doing their jobs, thus interfering with other Americans legal right to earn a living. I say prosecute. They have a right to protest, but you may not trample the property or other rights of other American citizens with your protests. But you won't post this, cause it's the other side of the coin. The logical and balanced opinion. From Hyde Street of San Francisco. -Joel

Posted by Guest on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 3:27 pm

Great. Web Development

Great.
Web Development

Posted by Guest on Jan. 04, 2012 @ 5:13 am

The law matters to liberals

only when it can be interpreted to rationalize their emotional outbursts.

Posted by Chromefields on Dec. 30, 2011 @ 9:31 am

Law and Civil Disobedience: A History Lesson

Back in the 1840s, an American named Henry David Thoreau wrote a book called *Civil Disobedience*. Thoreau took the view that when citizens of a democracy feel that a law is unjust, they have the moral right and duty first to protest it by legal means (petition for redress of grievances, as specified in the First Amendment) and then, if the injustice is not redressed, to peacefully (nonviolently) refuse to obey. Thoreau's book inspired (among other movements) the abolitionists, the Indian independence movement, the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements, ACT-UP, and a number of recent revolutions in Eastern Europe. In short, nonviolent civil disobedience and its offshoot, nonviolent direct action, are American traditions that date from the second generation of this republic. The attempt by some in this thread to assimilate such nonviolent lawbreaking actions to crimes such as murder and rape is only a little more predictable and depressing than the historical ignorance and logical feebleness of some arguing the contrary position.

Incidentally, the Port of Oakland is NOT a "yard"--it is a corporate-dominated entity that pays no taxes to the city. Moreover, contrary to the stories in the MSM, many if not most port workers and super-exploited "independent" truckers supported the port blockades. Occupy Oakland has received considerable material support from ILWU and Teamster locals despite the official disapproval of their mossback national leaderships, and plenty of union members have participated--as they will also be participating in the mass blockade of the container port of Longview, WA--where the embattled ILWU local has specifically called on Occupy for help. This notion that Occupy consists of "white middle class liberals/anarchists" is a complete crock of mainstream media shit and always has been. I know, because I've been part of OO since its second week.

Will some of you people please, for the sake of at least a rational and informed debate, go read some history, learn how to argue, and stop flaming?

Posted by Guest on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 5:46 pm

why thanks fo rthe history lesson

I don't know how we all got by without your take on things up till now.

If a person does some protesting and someone laughs, that not a alack of understanding of history, thats just getting a laugh.

Many find it comical that certain people can't fathom why the rest of us don't enjoy their revealed world on the same level. This is what you share with pro-lifers who claim the civil rights movement and scream about the genocide of black babies.

There is a rich history of people who have noted the odd disconnect that your two groups share, not the least of which is "the Politics of Unreason" by Lippsett, or "the True Believer" by Hoffer. etc...

Exercise your civil whatever, I get to chuckle at you, even more so when you spout like a pro-lifer. And like Michael, if you rave about personal values as some sort of revealed moral authority jibber jabber, I get to point out anyone can do that, and giggle with glee when you back peddle.

One last note, if you break the law doing your thing keep in mind many of the people you note went to jail for their beliefs, or killed, or had the shit beat out of them, while you whine.

People died on the docks in SF so you can bitch about student loans. Freedom riders got the shit kicked out of them so you can occupy a house that has bee refinanced six times in six years.

But thanks for the history lesson, and the comical lack of understand of the modern political spectrum and the commonalities of Michael and the average right to lifer.

Posted by Guest on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 8:32 pm

your asinine screed

above can be easily boiled down to only one sentence within it:

"I get to point out anyone can do that, and giggle with glee when you back peddle"

giggle with glee... what a pathetic joke you are..

no truly cogent comments whatsoever about the subject at hand, just a repetition of cheap flimsy debate points only made for purposes of thickheaded domination of the conversation which ineffectually fails to masquerade as thought

your only purpose is to cackle at and ridicule others as if you are Jerry Springer show guest

your mentality belongs there

you are a worthless piece of chintzy crap

people like you cheapen everything that you come into even the barest contact with

Posted by anonymous on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 9:15 pm

very deep

You get to keep restating that your values are superior, like a born again Christian pro-lifer, and because you hold your views the same way, you are better and smarter.

I get it just fine there Randall Terry.

Posted by matlock on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 10:52 pm

Ad hominems arguments are inherently fallacious

and therefore do not merit a response.

If anyone has an argument that there is a necessary relationship between legal and moral authority, I would be interested to see it.

Posted by Michael W. on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 9:16 pm

false analogy

As you get to define morality.

Just like a born again Christian you get to parade your opinions as values.

Moral authority = Michael W's opinions

legal authority = our nations laws, since you have stated that you have dropped out of our society and are smarter and better than all of us because we don't agree with your opinions, then this is not something you need to worry about. Just disdain it from your perch on high.

Posted by matlock on Jan. 01, 2012 @ 10:47 pm

Exactly, MW wants to break laws that HE thinks are unjust

but, as a liberal, wants to impose lots of laws on others whom he presumably expects to obey.

So occupying somebody else's property is "right" but occupying an abortion clinic would be "wrong".

Such hypocrisy and double standards are at the heart of most extremism.

Posted by Anonymous on Jan. 02, 2012 @ 12:26 am

And who exactly gets to decide what's moral?

I might thunk it's moral to occupy the homes of those who occupy the homes of others. Fair?

Posted by Anonymous on Jan. 02, 2012 @ 12:27 am

notice he expects there to be an answer

while the answer is going to be different for 100 different groups, but because of his revealed type of knowledge he expects an answer to his liking.

His equal on the right might ask what is moral and biblical, and assume we all must accept that definition once given, by Randal Terry I suppose.

As to your other comment, Michael thinks the whole process is corrupt and horrid, so do we know that he agrees with the micro management of the SF board of supes?

As Marx said in the communist Manifesto, these little laws are just "hole and corner reforms." Mike thinks the big picture I'm sure.

Posted by mat on Jan. 02, 2012 @ 1:29 pm

Mat, I'd be interested to see if MichaelW would offer

the same reflection on the lack of a moral imperative to laws if it were the KKK occupying that house who were arrested.

I'm guessing he'd make a different remark.

Posted by Anonymous on Jan. 03, 2012 @ 4:39 am

I have made only one claim:

that legal and moral authority are logically independent. I then asked if anyone has an argument that there is a necessary relationship between legal and moral authority.

I never asked that morals be defined, identified, or listed, nor have I have attempted to do so myself

Posted by Michael W. on Jan. 02, 2012 @ 10:13 pm

MW, you clearly were suggesting that the arrests were

wrong, because you believed the lawbreakers were justified on "moral grounds".

Your attempts to get all philosophical can't hide your fundamental and distasteful bias.

Posted by Anonymous on Jan. 02, 2012 @ 11:11 pm

Why did I say that I believe that the

lawbreakers were justified on "moral grounds"? I asked you why you were assuming that laws have any moral authority.

Posted by Michael W on Jan. 02, 2012 @ 11:37 pm

MW, your track record precedes you.

I can't recall you ever making a post critical of the Occupiers or supportive of the authorities cracking down on them.

So when the first respondent here stated that the ONLY issue here was whether the protestors broke the law, you implied that such laws might not have a moral authority.

It's clear that statement was supportive of the arrested Occupiers here and not merely an abstract philosophical rumination.

Own your opinions and your biases.

Posted by Anonymous on Jan. 03, 2012 @ 2:27 am

(correction) WHERE did I state that I supported the actions

the occupation of the foreclosed property on "moral grounds". I asked you why you were assuming that laws have any moral authority.

Posted by Michael W. on Jan. 03, 2012 @ 10:11 am

OK, MW, we accept your claim that you do not defend the

actions of lawbreakers based on the premise that the laws they broke have no moral underpinning.

I feel sure that everyone here agrees with your position that those who break the law must face the full consequences of their actions.

Posted by Anonymous on Jan. 03, 2012 @ 10:29 am

You were asking because

you think you get to define morality for everyone.