Occupied California

No conclusions when another world is unpopular

An assessment of sorts on the wave of occupations and protests in the University of California system during the fall of 2009.

The parting words of After the Fall–at once both a summation and a call–present the occupations in the past 6 months as a “vulgar and beautiful” destabilizing force within a larger arena of forces, at times nomadic and imperceptible, at other times spectacularly, with declarations and attitude.

We are still here: statement from the occupation of the Business School Building renamed Oscar Grant Hall

Communique from the SFSU occupation during the Fall of 2009.

To those disaffected and affected by the budget cuts.

To those laid-off faculty who have been sent off this campus because Robert Corrigan values his six-figure income more than your pedagogy.

To those workers, always the unseen heroes who are the first to take the sacrifices.

Back to Mrak: an assessment

A piece looking back at an occupation at UC Davis in Fall of 2009, calling into question the point of negotiations between one side that has the police at their disposal and the other side, the students, who are unarmed.

One might have imagined that “negotiations” and “continued constructive dialogue” were merely a means of deferring, defusing, displacing the university struggle. They are certainly that. But it was clear last night in Mrak Hall that these are also a direct extension of police intimidation, of the immediately repressive apparatus of the administration.

Reflections on Kerr Hall (by student participants)

barricaded elevators and doors at Kerr Hall

An account of an occupation at UCSC in Fall of 2009.

In the aftermath of the November occupation of Kerr Hall at UCSC there has been a storm of writing and discussion as both supporters and critics have rushed to represent the unprecedented events and imbue them with political meaning.

Voices from Wheeler Hall

The following are excerpts from the zine that emerged from the occupation of Wheeler Hall at the University of California, Berkeley on November 20, 2009. The occupiers did not issue a communique; their opinions were so heterogeneous, and their action so spontaneous, that they opted for individual statements later compiled in a zine format. As the explanatory opening paragraph states, “What can be said is we want change. Nothing is over.”

When we were handcuffed and waiting to be processed after the occupation,the plastic ties bit into my wrists, causing my hands to lose feeling and tiny capillaries to break along the unforgiving lines of contact between skin and restraint. But I did not ask for them to be loosened.

A call to the future from in and around Occupied Wheeler

A description of the events that occurred at the November 20, 2009 occupation at UC Berkeley.

On Friday, Nov. 20th a brilliant revelation appeared on UC Berkeley campus. Students and workers on this campus held true to their aging chants and actually stood up and fought back. Mocking the days preceding where apathy seemed to reign on campus, when we forced ourselves to mutter “Whose University?

Carter-Huggins Hall: Occupation Statement and Post-Occupation Statement

Two communiques about a Fall 2009 occupation at UCLA.

On 19 November at approximately 12:30 AM students occupied Campbell Hall at UCLA. The time has come for us to make a statement and issue our demands. In response to this injunction we say: we ask nothing. We demand nothing. We will take, we will occupy. We have to learn not to tip toe through a space which ought by right to belong to everyone.