Intro: "A three-week-long protest on UC Berkeley agricultural research land in Albany came to a quiet close early Monday when police cleared out a small group of protesters who had set up an urban farming camp."
A woman is arrested at the scene of a police raid on Gill Tract in Albany, May 14, 2012. (photo: CBS)
UC Police Raid Occupy the Farm
15 May 12
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UC police arrest 9 as they clear Occupy the Farm
three-week-long protest on UC Berkeley agricultural research land in Albany came to a quiet close early Monday when police cleared out a small group of protesters who had set up an urban farming camp.
University police officers in riot helmets arrested nine people after giving protesters 10 minutes to leave the Gill Tract near Marin and San Pablo avenues about 6:15 a.m. When officers fanned out across the fields, the few protesters who had not obeyed the police order scurried off the property and onto San Pablo, which authorities had closed to traffic.
Two protesters were arrested on suspicion of trespassing, said Lt. Eric Tejada, a police spokesman.
Work crews moved in shortly after 7:30 a.m. and began removing activists' tents and supplies as several dozen protesters watched from the sidewalk. Seven were arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly after they refused to move off San Pablo Avenue, said Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesman.
The Occupy the Farm activists, who are loosely affiliated with the national Occupy Wall Street movement, had agreed to stop sleeping at the camp over the weekend. But most had not left the property and refused to negotiate with UC Berkeley administrators, Tejada said.
"UC has been in long negotiations, but the negotiations have never proven to be fruitful because they (the activists) literally never came to the table," Tejada said.
Some decide to stay
One of the protesters, Ashoka Finley of Richmond, said he had been standing guard when police arrived. Finley said some protesters had decided they would rather be arrested farming than flee from police.
"We made a conscious decision to be inside," he said.
Crews used a bulldozer to clear away more of the camp at midday, including a wooden structure frame labeled as a chicken coop. Protesters gathered against a fence and police responded by lining up inside, but no protesters re-entered the tract.
End of standoff
Lesley Haddock, an organizer of the protest, said the group wanted to cultivate crops, not camp on the property.
"We are going to be back on the farm one way or another, either outside looking in or inside cultivating our crops," she said. "We're not giving up on this land."
Monday's action was the culmination of a standoff that began when activists moved onto the tract April 22 as a protest against planned commercial development and housing nearby. They were pressuring the university to preserve part of the tract, which has been the subject of development debates for years, for agricultural study and urban farming.
The protesters tilled 2 acres on a site used by the College of Natural Resources for research. They planted vegetables, set up a drip system and pitched tents.
Last week, the UC Board of Regents filed a lawsuit against 14 protesters, claiming they and others had conspired to cut through chains that secured gates and trespass onto the Gill Tract.
The suit says a 24-hour-a-day encampment is not consistent with agricultural experiments, and that the demonstrators are delaying an annual corn planting.
"It's impossible to do good science when you have a few dozen untrained, unsupervised and uninvited guests roaming around an open-air lab," Mogulof said.
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It isn't so much that Trump may or may not be guilty of anything, as much as it is a concerted effort by the Dems and their allies to distract attention from their own criminality. By stridently pointig to the possibility of Trump misdeeds, they only solidify the disbelief in those of us who remember their own - which they take no responsibility for.
The Republicans have certainly sown the seeds of their own destruction, but the Democratic party is following them rapidly down the drain withh the same-old, same-old tactics of shifting blame onto anyone that will serve the purpose of distraction. That's not bad, though. It's always useful to know the enemies of Democracy for who they are.
You bring him up even when it makes no sense, and you always do so with a sneer. The problem is, even as you insult him, he is STILL the ONLY politician publicly calling for single payer health care, jobs, opioid treatment centers, etc. He's the one working his heart out to win back Obama-to-Trump flippers. He's the one talking to Independents and advocating for the 99%.
Your inappropriate and obsessive taunts for a good man, maybe one of the last good pols in DC, is very weird and a bit worrisome; instead of convincing anyone to distrust him, it only makes you look irrational, petty and unhinged.
Yes, it is a tad Utopian, but if criminals high and low were actually held accountable, taxpayer money would go where it is intended to go, so we could start to achieve real social progress.
An impossible goal, unless there would be an amnesty period, say 3 or 4 years, for both rich and poor pirates to clean up their/our acts via legal or gently nefarious means. Perhaps extend it a bit for the Pentagon and its missing 2.3 trillion dollars so we don't have a military junta...
why don't you stop excusing what the DNC did and demand accountability. there's no way this country will recover until the corruption is exposed and dealt with.
No clue as to his responsibilitie s, either.
1. We suspend Trump's activities as President - no policies, executive orders or any other significant activities on behalf of the U.S. - he's a liar and cannot be trusted - trust is basic to any president
2. With Mike Pence in the picture now, same for him - suspend him
3. We set up the apparatus to do either of the following:
- declare Hillary Clinton the winner of the Nov 8th election - fair and square
- hold an "election do-over"
We must show the world - and ourselves especially, that we are smart and strong enough to deal with any crisis that comes our way.
Not only did Hillary win the popular vote by 3 million voter, but you'd have to be deaf dumb and blind to not believe that Russia, plus Comey's bogus announcement 10 days prior to the elections, did not sway the incredibly few people in the 3 states that gave the electoral college to Trump - Wisconsin, Penn., Michigan.
Our democracy is at stake and these unprecedented activities by Trump and his cabal call for unprecedented action - the courage to do what is right-throw these bums out, bring in Hillary or do the election over again, giving the Repugs 30 days to choose their candidate and then another 30 days for both to campaign - period.
I don't think we will make it to 2018 with peace in our land. There are just too many guns in the hands of our citizens and our armed forces. Perhaps, the people we have killed since Vietnam and Cambodia to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen and Libya will come back to haunt us. What a fate, self destruction. I think we have a chance for peace but the door is closing fast. Leave it to the Republicans and we are doomed for sure. With the Democrats, even Hillary, we have a chance.
Fortunately, she is Green and also progressive and so she could not have been a dupe by Putin.
But as we can see from Le Pen - that is how it starts...
From Putin's point of view, she was a useful idiot. She helped progressives to think that both major parties are equally corrupt and so it doesn't matter who wins.
Nader caused Bush and his stupid wars and now Stein has helped cause the current mess. Progressives need to understand the actual function of elections. If you vote for a third party it means that you really don't care who wins.