Global Justice & Anti-Capitalism News

After nearly a year of struggle, Moms for Housing announced on October 9 that their house on Magnolia Street in West Oakland had been purchased. Moms4Housing co-founder Dominique Walker declared, "This is officially Moms' House." In November, Dominique Walker and her allies running as the "Right to Housing" slate were elected to the Berkeley rent board. ACCE Director and Moms4Housing co-founder Carroll Fife claimed victory as Oakland's D3 councilmember-elect.

On Monday, October 5, a Poor People's Campaign car caravan demonstrated in front of Senators Feinstein's and Harris' San Francisco offices. Led by a truck with a large sign demanding that McConnell not steal the Supreme Court, about thirty cars, a motorcycle and a bicycle assembled in the ILWU parking lot on Second Street and made their way to the Senators' downtown offices. The event notice described the protest as against "the meanness, misery, and mayhem of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Senate enablers."

President Trump has said little about the wildfires raging in California, Oregon and Washington for weeks, other than to suggest poor forest management was primarily to blame. “These are climate fires,” says Timothy Ingalsbee, an Oregon-based wildland fire ecologist and former wildland firefighter. “Though some scientists hesitate to attribute a single event to climate change, these are exactly the conditions predicted by climatologists.”

Despite limited concessions by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy following public outcry against mail delaying tactics, community members and postal workers rallied to demand that Congress save the US Postal Service in protests across the US. Naturally the San Francisco Bay Area was no exception. Many here have long been concerned about privatization schemes. A national day of action on August 22 drew protests throughout the Bay Area.

On August 19, Facebook took down multiple pages they believe to be connected with crimethinc.com and itsgoingdown.org, among other anarchist and anti-fascist projects, officially on the pretext that they “support violence.” A joint statement issued in response says Facebook lumping anarchists and anti-fascists together with far-right militias, who explicitly support the state and especially the current administration, is a strategic move to muddy the issues.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's Oakmore estate was hit with graffiti and a noise demonstration in the early morning on July 21. A communiqué posted to Indybay states, "We left a note on her garage, and treated her to a nice fireworks display and the musical notes of pots and pans and assorted noisemakers. Our message to Libby and other elected officials is simple: You have the power to take the boot off our necks — so we have the duty to struggle against you until that boot is lifted. You can't hide from your responsibility!"

Demonstrations continue around the Bay Area in the name of George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25, with tens of thousands taking to the streets. Protests in every corner of the Bay Area have been met with police force. Demonstrators say they won’t be stopping despite the risks posed by police attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out the full feature with coverage from across Northern California.

A coalition of activists marked May Day with demands to cancel rent, mortgage and utility payments for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic with a car caravan at San Francisco city hall, and also counter-protested against a simultaneous Republican-sponsored demonstration to "open" up the economy. Republicans want to resume economic activity as soon as possible in an attempt to salvage the reelection of Trump, wrapping their intentions in American flags and slogans of "freedom" and "liberty."

Taking inspiration from Oakland's Moms4Housing, ReclaimSF organized to directly meet the real needs of unhoused neighbors and to demand bolder initiatives from elected officials. On May Day 2020, two homeless women occupied a vacant building in San Francisco's Castro District. A few hours later, about twenty-five SFPD officers wearing "Blue Lives Matter" face masks forcibly evicted the building occupiers.