Feature Archives

Before dawn on March 5, the houses of six University of California, Berkeley, officials were struck with graffiti and vandalism. On April 16, another action "repainted" houses believed to be owned by members of the San Francisco Graffiti Advisory Board. On May 2, nine Sullivan Management Company properties were similarly targeted, following a May Day direct action that reclaimed a long-vacant SMC property. On May 7, Oakland police vehicles were damaged.

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!"