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California Hunger Strike representatives imprisoned in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, who launched the historic hunger strike in July, have written a statement of solidarity which Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity read at the demonstration outside San Quentin:

“Corporate Amerika has coalesced its efforts around the exploitation of human beings, while using the political apparatus of the U.S. government, federal, state and local to institute policies that set in motion the creation of a corporate police state, which has targeted the poor as a surplus for incarceration and exploitation.

Those of us housed in solitary confinement throughout California and Amerika, support “Occupy Wall Street” and understand the necessity to resist against corporate greed.  We will no longer willingly accept the subjugation, oppression and exploitation of humanity.

Banks and the prison industrial complex are corporate empires that prey on the souls of humanity. Therefore we officially join you all in Struggle. One Love, One Struggle!”

It’s not news that our community is in a time of deep struggle.  The current unemployment rate is 8.3%.   The unemployment rate for African Americans is now 13.6%.^[1]  (For context, in 2005 prior to Hurrican Katrina, overall the unemployment rate was 4.9%^[2].)   Transgender individuals face unemployment rates estimated to be double the overall unemployment numbers^.[3]  There are more unemployed people in America today than the total populations of Los Angeles and New York City combined.^[4] 

A devastated economy hurts all of us.  And any communities facing disproportionate unemployment – whether people of color, youth, immigrants, women, or queers – are disproportionately hurt.  So shouldn’t a group that supposedly advocates for the LGBT community be representing the interests of those of us who are most impacted by this current crisis?

It is not surprising that HRC (the Human Rights Campaign) is standing with the 1%, yet again, and not the queer 99% it (halfheartedly & with caveats) claims to represent.  HRC has recently announced that the CEO of Goldman Sachs will be their first corporate spokesman for gay marriage.  Yes.   HRC is partnering with Goldman Sachs.   One of the  key players in the financial crisis.  They honored Goldman Sachs at their annual $650/plate gala while the Occupy Wall Street LGBT caucus had a protest potluck outside.

Yet again, HRC shows itself to be a short-sighted elitist organization with an interest in co-opting the struggle of many for the purposes of a few.

Here are some facts about Goldman Sachs -

During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs converted from an investment bank to a bank holding company in September 2008, and received $10 billion in government financial assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.^[5] Less than a year later, Goldman Sachs freed itself from government oversight of its executive compensation by repaying $10 billion to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”)^[6]

·         CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein received total compensation of $14.1 million in 2010.[9] In January 2011, the Wall Street firm more than tripled his base salary from $600,000 to $2 million.^[10]

·         In 2010, the base salary for Goldman Sachs managing directors jumped to $500,000 from $300,000.^[11]

·         In response to concerns by shareholders and the public, Goldman Sachs announced that senior executives would forgo cash bonuses for 2009, and instead receive stock that must be held for at least five years.^[12] The company gave out the 2009 stock awards in early February 2010. CEO Lloyd Blankfein received stock valued at $9 million. Overall, Goldman Sachs paid more than $16 billion in 2009 compensation and benefits, the equivalent of $500,000 per employee. ^[13]

·         In 2007, when the housing bubble began to burst, Goldman Sachs booked record revenue and earnings and paid its CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein $68.7 million, the most ever for a Wall Street executive.

·         Its profit for the first nine months of 2011 dropped 73% to $1.5 billion, from $5.5 billion a year ago. But its compensation expenses dropped only 23% for the period, to $10 billion for compensation in the first three quarters of 2011, from the $13 billion it set aside a year ago. ^[14]

·         In response to concerns by shareholders and the public, Goldman Sachs announced that senior executives would forgo cash bonuses for 2009, and instead receive stock that must be held for at least five years.^[15] The company gave out the 2009 stock awards in early February 2010. CEO Lloyd Blankfein received stock valued at $9 million. Overall, Goldman Sachs paid more than $16 billion in 2009 compensation and benefits, the equivalent of $500,000 per employee. ^[16]

Goldman Sachs employees have contributed $369,700 to Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, making the firm the single largest source of his campaign finance, through September 2011.^[17]  Goldman Sachs manages Mitt Romney’s blind trust, estimated to be as much as $250 million. ^[18]

Jesus, who has been in the US for 16 years,  had a good union job (with health insurance) working for Pacific Steel for 14 years. In January, just months after the workers of Pacific Steel went on strike, the company did an I9 immigration audit of its employees and fired 200 workers. Jesus was one of those that lost their jobs.

Now Jesus needs a Kidney transplant.  He waited 6 arduous years, doing dialysis daily, to get to the top of the donor list. Then in May of 2011, while doing the final workup for his transplant at the University of California at San Francisco Kidney Transplant Center, a social worker and doctor asked him point blank if he was in the country legally. When he explained his situation, they told him that he no longer qualified for the transplant. His wife offered to donate her kidney. They said no.

UCSF Kidney Transplant Center is refusing the operation because they claim there is no guarantee that he will be in a position to receive the follow-up care necessary because of his uncertain immigration status in this country.

Jesus’s supporters around the Bay Area have been petitioning UCSF to stop denying him the transplant he needs.   The letter demanding UCSF give him his kidney transplant from organizations reached over 150 signatures in less than 24 hours. The online petition has reached over 34,000 signatures! If you haven’t signed yet, please follow the link: .

http://www.change.org/petitions/dont-let-jesus-navarro-die-approve-his-kidney-transplant

Also there has been a website set up to support his family and send him messages of encouragement, please take a minute and share your thoughts with him or donate:  http://www.transplant4jesus.com/

There is also a facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Transplant-for-Jesus-Navarro/221199677972951?sk=wall

Recently, Scott Weiner (the supervisor that represents the Castro) proposed legislation that lays out a number of new regulations for Harvey Milk and Jane Warner Plazas– two mini parks on either side of the Castro/Market/ 17th st intersection.  These regulations would further criminalize homelessness in the Castro, and– in addition to being outright mean-spirited– are duplicative.  We already have a new (terrible) law that makes it illegal to sit or lie on city sidewalks, and it’s against California Penal Code section 647(e) to camp in public plazas– that’s what Bob got cited for.  The new aspects of this law are that it would prohibit sitting on movable chairs at night, and it would prohibit possession of even legally-owned shopping carts.

So what is this new law that’s being considered?  Here’s a summary:

In both Harvey Milk and Jane Warner Plazas, the proposed regulations would prohibit:
• the use of moveable chairs or benches between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m.;
• sleep at any hour;
• “camping” (erecting a tent or similar shelter);
• the accumulation of household furniture or appliances, or construction
debris;
• bringing any goods for sale or barter into the plazas, or offering such
goods for sale, or selling such goods;
• landscaping activities;
• smoking; and,
• the use of wheeled conveyances, except bicycles, wheelchairs, two-
wheeled shopping carts, or strollers intended for child-carrying
purposes.

Violators may be subject to citation for an infraction, and a fine of $100 for the first conviction in a year; $200 for a second conviction within a year of a first conviction, and $500 for any subsequent convictions within a year of a first conviction.
Alternately, the Department of Public Works may levy an administrative fine of up to $300 per day of violation.

Sign this petition from QuEEN (Queers for Economic Equality Now) to say you stand against this legislation!

There are almost no public spaces in the Castro, a neighborhood that attracts people from all over the world who see it as a gathering space for the LGBT community.  And Harvey Milk Plaza in particular has been important to the queer community for a long time. In the 70s, Harvey Milk would get up on a soap box with a bullhorn in hand and speak out on issues that concerned him. Over the years, the spot has been, and still is, a place for rallies, gatherings, celebrations, cruising, tabling, sunbathing, performing, etc. It is a valued community treasure that has never needed regulations to make it welcoming to everyone, and it’s named after a guy who fought Sit/lie laws and other laws like this one.  What an insult!

The fact is that 40% of homeless youth in SF are queer. Given that they can’t get into the bars to socialize, public space such as Milk Plaza has become an important place for them to hang out. They need housing & a place to hang out– they don’t need to be fined for sitting on a chair after 9pm or falling asleep on a bench. For the homeless, a fine can be a permanent ticket to homelessness. If a fine is not paid (because the person simply doesn’t have the money), it turns into a bench warrant and possibly jail time. That “criminal record” creates a hurdle to getting into housing later on. Laws like this create the conditions that keep people homeless or extend their time on the streets. In a city with over 10,000 homeless people, this is terrible policy.

Keep Milk and Warner plazas free for everyone. Let’s FIGHT this legislation!

http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2012/01/30/homeless-advocate-gleefully-arrested-for-camping-in-castro-plaza/

We would not say Bob Offer-Westort knows how to have a rockin’ Friday night. We would say he has a pretty clever sense of humor.

He and his comrades at the Coalition on Homelessness have found their latest political target: Supervisor Scott Wiener and his legislation, to be taken up Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors, that would crack down on all sorts of behavior in two plazas at the intersection of Castro and Market Streets. One of the arguments within the argument has been whether California Penal Code section 647(e) already bans camping in plazas, thus negating a need for a city ban. Wiener has said it would be “a stretch, at best” to say state law prohibits camping in the plazas, whereas the coalition says it does.

And so Offer-Westort decided to see who was right. He pitched a tent in Jane Warner Plaza at 9 p.m. Friday, unrolled a sleeping bag and was approached by all sorts of friendly Castro denizens, including two, he said, who offered to let him camp in their backyard. But three visitors to his tent were not so friendly. Hint: they were dressed in matching blue uniforms.

Sure enough Offer-Westort was given a citation for illegal lodging under – you guessed it – 647(e), handcuffed and taken to the Mission police station where he was released after two hours. Today, he hand delivered a letter to Wiener, a former deputy city attorney, asking him for legal representation in the case.

“As the best-qualified attorney I know of who believes that [Penal Code] 647(e) does not apply to Jane Warner Plaza, you’re my best hope, Scott,” the letter reads.

Sadly for Offer-Westort and for city columnists who would love to see Wiener argue the case, the supervisor has declined. He called the camping experiment “a publicity stunt” and said the penal code section is “incredibly vague.” He added that there are plenty of examples, such as banning trespassing, in which the city has adopted its own ordinance to clarify and expand upon a state ban.

By the way, 647(e) reads, that a person is guilty of a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct if they “lodge in any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession or in control of it.”

In any case, Wiener isn’t worried about Offer-Westort’s legal future since the coalition has many pro bono lawyers working to get tickets issued to homeless people dismissed.

“I will bet my lunch that if this ticket were to go to court that the Coalition on Homelessness would argue that 647(e) doesn’t apply, that it’s not specific enough, that it’s too vague,” Wiener said. “I’m sure he’ll be in good hands.”

On Jan. 1, 2012, San Francisco’s minimum wage became the first in the nation to pass the $10 mark. The lowest-wage workers will now earn $10.24 an hour, up from the previous rate of $9.92 last year. The city’s minimum wage is tied to and adjusted for inflation, or specifically the Consumer Price Index for the San Francisco Bay Area. For most of the country the minimum wage is not at all tied to inflation, and therefore has lost value in real terms.

But San Francisco’s is different because of a law enacted as a result of Proposition L, a city ballot measure fought for and won by a coalition of organized labor and a diverse network of community-based progressive organizations back in 2003. The alliance was particularly rooted in communities of color and pushed by low-wage workers not typically represented by traditional unions.

After the passage of Proposition L, the new minimum wage started at $8.50 in 2004, and has risen incrementally since to its present value. However, this is still far below a living wage, especially in San Francisco, a city with one of the highest costs of living in the country. Additionally, a range of issues such as a housing shortage, little access to healthcare, and wage theft among others make it increasingly difficult for the city’s low-wage workers.

In response to these challenges, the coalition of community organizations that united to bring about the minimum wage increase has continued to work together over the past several years to tackle the range of the issues affecting their memberships. Uniting under the banner of the Progressive Workers Alliance, groups from across the city representing historically-marginalized communities very consciously have chose to organize using a multiracial model, uniting a broad base of affected workers.

The Progressive Workers Alliance itself is a lesson the individual organizations have learned from the minimum wage fight of 2003. In coalition the groups have realized their impact is larger, and their power has increased. They are using this to better advocate for their memberships’ economic interests, and affect change on a grander scale.

To help tell this story, Colorlines.com spoke with Jaron Browne and Donaji Lona from People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER); Shaw San Liu from the Chinese Progressive Association; Renee Saucedo from SF Day Laborer Program and Women’s Collective; and Ken Jacobs from the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

A flash mob performs a song and dance routine in front of the Wells Fargo building on Montgomery Street during a day of action by Occupy protesters against corporations and financial institutions in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Jan. 20, 2012.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2012%2F01%2F20%2FBA4L1MS7IC.DTL&object=%2Fc%2Fpictures%2F2012%2F01%2F20%2Fba-occupy21_SFC0106212511.jpg

On January 20, we joined, thousands of people from across the San Francisco Bay Area to take over San Francisco’s Financial District as part of an ongoing series of Occupy Wall St West actions that have been taking place across the city (and bay) for months.  Across downtown, people were targeting different banks and corporations that make profits off of destroying our communities, homes, education, environment, and livelihoods.

We joined people who were shutting down the Wells Fargo Corporate Headquarters on Montgomery Street.  While some of our friends chained themselves to the doors, we danced and chanted in the rain. Police arrested at least eleven people, but not before we shut down the HQs of one of the world’s biggest banks for the day!

At noon, we were joined by Occupy Bernal, who talked about how Wells Fargo’s predatory lending and forclosures can make us feel alone,  but we know that this is not OUR crisis, and we will NOT pay for their greed!

At 1pm, we joined Just Cause/Causa Justa to march to the ICE building, where we talked about the ways that the criminalization, detention, and deportation of immigrants has become a business, making profits on the backs of our communities.  Watch a video of previous actions with CJJC about this issue here.

When we marched past the Wells Fargo HQ later in the day, we saw that it had been boarded up and was surrounded by riot police!  We did our job of shutting it down, and then Wells Fargo finished it for us!

Other fun actions continued around the city all day long.  One group kicked off the day of action dressed as giant squids at Goldman Sachs, which Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi refers to as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”.

People also occupied Bank of America’s main branch at Montgomery and California streets, which was blockaded and shut down for nine hours. At Citicorp’s 1 Sansome office, protestors staged a mock foreclosure, piling furniture and moving boxes into the revolving door at the main entrance.

Iraq Veterans Against the War engaged in guerilla theater,  detaining fellow protestors on suspicion of “terrorism” in a protest against an unconstitutional provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, recently passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Obama, one provision of which permits the arrest and indefinite detention of US citizens anywhere in the world, including the US.

Occupy Oakland’s mobile music bus led several marches through the Financial District. One BofA branch was transformed into the roving People’s Food Bank of America at 1 Market Street where a hot, nutritious, organic meal sustained freezing Occupiers. A mysterious amorphous black blob oozed around the financial district.

Over at Occupy the Auction, Occupy Bernal protestors and supporters got the news that their planned protest at the weekly foreclosure auctions led Wells Fargo to postpone a foreclosure auction of the property rented by Bernal neighbors Maria and Washington Davila. Maria Davila and other foreclosure fighters thanked the crowd of about two hundred protestors for this first important step toward stopping banks from their predatory evictions and foreclosures throughout San Francisco.

Protestors stormed Fortress Investments to demand a halt to predatory equity scams where landlords and banks buy apartment buildings intending to remove rent-controlled units from the market so they can replace them with market-rate tenants. Other protestors occupied busses running on Market and Mission Streets to demand free transportation for youth.

Local 2 put foam in a fountain at the Grand Hyatt at Union Square to protest the anti-labor practices of the hotel chain, calling for a boycott in support of workers who are fighting for fair contracts at all three San Francisco Hyatts. Protestors led by the Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco occupied the Citi Apartments office to fight for workers’ stolen wages.

A march ended at Van Ness Avenue at  Geary where hundreds of protestors had a rainy standoff with the SFPD. Police pepper sprayed a dozen protestors. More than a hundred occupiers gained entrance to the Cathedral Hill Hotel at 1001 Van Ness Ave. where they held a housewarming party and occupied the hotel until the early hours of the following morning. A site of labor disputes, the hotel sits vacant while 10,000 homeless people are living on the streets of San Francisco.

For our flickr album of photos from the day, click here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/havoqsf/sets/72157629018302803/

For featured news roll, videostreams, and twitter feeds, see http://www.occupywallstwest.org and http://www.occupysf.org