Threatened Occupy LA counters mayor, buys gas masks

'Para Todos Todo, Para Nosotros Nada: For Everyone, Everything, For Us, Nothing' Occupy Los Angeles human rights defenders say to city officials in solidarity with oppressed Occupiers globally

In solidarity with oppressed occupiers globally, Occupy Los Angeles rights defenders have rejected LA city's proposal for it to vacate its LA City Hall encampment by November 28 despite closed-door negotiations Tuesday, and instead, with full General Assembly consensus, the occupiers passed a resolution Wednesday including ten grievances based on human rights of free speech and assembly protected under U.S. Constitution First Amendment, that they released in an official statement at 6:15 a.m. Thanksgiving Day. Police declined to tell LA Times reporters what they plan do to rights defenders refusing to vacate their City Hall Park encampment, now renamed by the rights defenders "Solidarity Park" in honor of the peaceful revolutionaries' struggle across the planet, but one LA resister has bought a gas mask due to the recent police gassing torture of Berkley rights defenders and military gassing massacre of Egyptian rights defenders.

"We're not being represented properly," protester Kylene Wolfstein said, adding that she wished city officials would address the entire body of protesters at the nightly General Assembly reported LA Times. Instead, officials have been meeting in closed-door meetings to negotiate with a handful of LA rights defenders, not the transparency and dialogue upheld in direct democracy the occupiers say they are sacrificing to create.

University of California president Mark Yudof said Tuesday that a former Los Angeles and New York police chief Bill Bratton is to lead an independent investigation on the pepper spray episode last week at U.C., Davis that "set off a furor around the country," reported the New York Times Tuesday. The furor is partially due to alleged police torture: prying the mouth open of one peaceful resister after spraying her eyes with burning chemicals, and then spraying them down her throat.

"Pepper spray and other severe tactics have recently been used with disturbing frequency by police against Occupy protesters — young or old or pregnant — around the nation (see this Atlantic roundup). But the agent's misuse goes back much further: in the mid-1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice cited nearly 70 fatalities linked to pepper-spray use, according to an excellent post on the dangers of pepper spray by science writer Deborah Blum on Speakeasy Science. ("How Painful is Pepper Spray?" Time Heahtland)

Thursday, one Occupy rights advocate emailed this writer about the neurotoxic chemical nerve agent made in the U.S. used over the past few days on Egyptian rights defenders reulting in a massacre in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square.

"How long before they spray us?" he asked.

In preparation for the dreaded moment that seems inevitable in Los Angeles, one occupier there said he has bought a gas mask.

The pending Los Angeles police action on what has been called an LA love fest of occupiers comes after LA City Council passed a resolution in support of Occupy L.A. and no major confrontations with the police.

Now, according to the New York Times, Bratton says that by allowing freedom of assembly, "allowing the protesters to remain in tents outside City Hall, Los Angeles officials had set a dangerous precedent."

Protesters have indicated their intention to peacefully take a stand for their freedom of speech and assembly rights.

In one Thanksgiving notice Thursday, "Give Thanks. Tribe Up," Daniil of Occupy Los Angeles explained, "Occupy Los Angeles is a peaceful-nonviolent movement. We are at a critical juncture in our occupation, when conflict with the police seems inevitable."

"They have announced that they intend to remove us next week with 72 hours notice. We have a great opportunity to demonstrate the best methods of non-violent resistance that we can muster. For the next few days, I and many of us will be pledging our commitment to non-violence and peaceful resistance. Many of us believe Occupy Los Angeles should resist police calmly and non-violently, and then reoccupy as necessary." (Occupy Los Angeles)

Mario Brio, named by LA Times as one of three LA rights defenders at each negotiation meeting with city officials, explained in a written statement Thursday why she and her comrades are occupying and for whom they are sacrificing:

"We occupy to build a better society, country and world. We occupy for our families and those we love. We occupy for the working men and women of the city who labor all day but yet fail to receive a fair shake. We occupy for the tens of thousands of homeless heroes who fought in this country’s uniform yet are thrown away like some disposable tissue. We occupy for all those losing their homes to a corrupt and broken banking system. We don’t occupy for ourselves, our ideology, our ego, or a piece a land."

Occupy Los Angeles statement fo Mayor's Office, Los Angeles Police Department

After meetings all day Wednesday, Occupy Los Angeles released the following statement about the pending attempt to evict the peacefully assembled occupiers from City Hall grounds.

COUNTER-OFFER FROM OCCUPY LOS ANGELES G.A. TO MAYOR'S OFFICE, LAPD

Submitted by OLA Web Team on Thu, 11/24/2011 - 6:15am

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES

Para Todos Todo, Para Nosotros Nada: For Everyone, Everything, For Us, Nothing

"In recent weeks, officials from the mayor's office and the Police Department have met privately with a group of Occupy L.A. participants to talk about what comes next for the protest, sometimes meeting several times a day," reports LA Times. "At least three protesters, Mario Brito, Scott Shuster and Jim Lafferty, have been present at most of the meetings."

Immediately, Occupy Los Angeles rights defenders began organizing according to LA Times, rather calling their prompt action "plotting."

In an email with written results of the Occupy Los Angeles meetings most of the day on Wednesday in response to the pending attempted eviciton, LA peace and rights advocate Jack Neff stated Thursday, "For those who believed the demands of the Occupy movement would never be produced, well, here they are."

The language, ideas and grievances contained herein were culled from the minutes of 2 special City Liaison Committee Meetings, 2 General Assemblies devoted to the issue, one meeting with the Demands & Objectives Committee, consultation with Media and PR, and widely circulated and amended by the online community of occupiers, and adapted into its current form by the General Assembly on 11/23/2011.

As a collective, Occupy Los Angeles would like to express their rejection of the City of Los Angeles’ alleged proposal that we leave City Hall by November 28th, 2011, in exchange for an apparently now rescinded offer of a 10,000 square foot building, farmland and 100 SRO beds for the homeless.

Occupy Los Angeles believes that as part of a global movement advocating direct, participatory democracy, and challenging economic and social injustices, our position is such that we cannot, in all good faith, accept further material benefit from City Hall at the taxpayer’s expense without seriously compromising our beliefs, our desire for global change, and our commitment to our inherent human rights to free speech and assembly protected in this country by First Amendment Rights. The 1 percent should be paying for any services used by the Occupy Movement, not taxpayers.

In the spirit of inclusivity and transparency which is so dear to our movement, Occupy Los Angeles extends an invitation to Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council to attend our General Assemblies at the City Hall Occupation if he wishes to discuss these and other matters in a direct, democratic and horizontal way. Mayor Villaraigosa must speak out against the violent actions towards our brothers and sisters, declare the actions of other cities to be unjust, and stand before us equally at a General Assembly. Occupy Los Angeles believes that until this happens, we should have no more closed-door discussions regarding our continuing occupation of City Hall.

The City Council – in line with government in general – is an authority which is more accountable to developers and corporations than the public. The very act of the Los Angeles City Council requesting the physical removal of Los Angeles Occupiers without redressing the grievances which were specifically referenced in the inclusion of our adopted ‘Declaration of the Occupation of New York City’, and in the City Council’s ’1st Amendment Rights / Occupy Los Angeles / Responsible Banking Resolution’ — is in effect supporting the removal of all Occupations from public space by any means. We cannot negotiate with such an institution without undermining our sister occupations across the globe who are suffering from oppressive force and attacks upon their inherent human rights to free speech and assembly, protected in this country under the First Amendment. We refer here to episodes in Oakland, Boston, New York, Portland, UC Davis and San Francisco, to name but a few. We refer to those further afield, in Tahrir Square in Egypt, in Madrid, Greece, London and more. Teargas, pepper spray, beatings, jail, suppression and intimidation have been used as a coercive method of silencing our movement and our desire for global change.

We reject outright the City’s attempts to lure us out of City Hall and into negotiations by offering us nebulous, non-transparent and unconfirmed offers which fail to even begin to address our local grievances. We will continue to occupy this space, in solidarity with our global movement, until the forces of the few are forced to capitulate to the power of the people.

When the following grievances have been addressed – grievances which we have agreed upon as a movement through our General Assembly as advancing our cause and providing for the people of Los Angeles – we as a movement will be happy to initiate dialogue with the Mayor and Los Angeles City Council. An office space of 10,000 square feet would not have addressed these grievances. While the grievances listed below are localized, we believe that they promote the underlying foundations and principles of our movement, which include, but are not limited to: providing for basic, fundamental and inalienable human rights such as shelter, food, healthcare, freedom of choice, sexual orientation, gender equality and education — and the right most paramount to a free and democratic society — the right to self-govern. Detailed demands which encompass our greater world view will be released at a later date by our Demands and Objectives Committee through the General Assembly.

GRIEVANCES NOT ADDRESSED

A moratorium on all foreclosures in the City of Los Angeles. The City of Los Angeles to divest from all major banks, and money to be removed from politics.
A citywide effort undertaken to solve the homelessness problem which has led to 18,000 homeless people sleeping on Skid Row every night. Rehabilitation and housing must be provided for all homeless people.
South Central Farm to be returned to the same LA community from which it was taken, and all other vacant and distressed land be open for the community use, and money to the tune of 1 million dollars – taken from Skid Row and given to the multi million dollar NFL firm – to be returned to Skid Row.
Los Angeles to be declared a sanctuary city for the undocumented, deportations to be discontinued and cooperation with immigration authorities be ended – including the turning in of arrestees’ names to immigration authorities.
All forms of weaponry used by multiple law enforcement officials – including, but not limited, to rubber bullets, pepper spray, verbal abuse, arrest, foam batons, long-range acoustic devices and more – are not to be used on those exercising their First Amendment Rights to petition our government for redress of grievances. We do not accept interference with freedom of the press and the public to document police actions in public spaces. We will not tolerate brutality.
We assert our right to an open plaza on the South Side of City Hall for people to peacefully assemble, voice grievances, speak freely, hold our General Assembly and come to the people’s consensus 24 hours a day if needed.
The City of Los Angeles to pressure the State to start a convention, as provided for in the Constitution, to remove corporate personhood and money from politics at a national level.
The City of Los Angeles to begin a dialogue at the State and Federal level on the issues of student debt and tuition hikes.
No cutbacks in city services or attacks on the wages, work conditions and pensions of city employees.
A world class transit system which addresses our debilitating traffic problem and restores the quality of life in Los Angeles.

We conclude, as a General Assembly, by hereby renaming City Hall Park - Solidarity Park."