Close friends report that the body of San Francisco activist Kirsten Brydum was found Saturday in New Orleans, where Kirsten had traveled as part of a popular education tour. Kirsten was known locally as an organizer of the Really Really Free Market in Dolores Park, a monthly gathering to freely exchange goods and services with no money, trade or barter.

According to press reports, Kirsten was fatally shot several times in the head. New Orleans police say they are awaiting a report from the coroner, who has not yet released information about the death.

Kirsten's death follows closely after news of the murder of another young activist, Marcella "Sali" Grace Eiler, in Oaxaca. Those who knew Kirsten or Sali have been invited to Million Fishes Cellar Space on Sept. 30th to grieve and to honor the women and support one another. Read More

Memorial page | 2007 video interview with Kirsten | Initial press report | More on the San Francisco RRFM: 1 | 2

On September 27th, four windows, a glass door and an ATM were smashed out at the Wells Fargo on the corner of Soquel Drive and Thurber Lane in the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz. Wells Fargo is one of the largest single stockholders in the GEO Group, a private prison outfit with prisons and detention centers spread across the world. Among many others, the GEO Group runs the ICE (Immigrations & Customs Enforcement) Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. The Geo Group also operates a Migrant Operations Center in Guantanamo Bay, on the grounds of the Naval Base, adjacent to the more infamous "Gitmo".

Ironically, Wells Fargo is also one of the largest methods of private remittances--money sent home to family abroad by working immigrants. They benefit off of the cash transfers of the migrant community on one hand, and profit off of their incarceration with the other. Read More

previous attacks: Santa Cruz Wells Fargo Paint Bombed || ATMs Attacked In Solidarity With Olympia Rioters || Smashed ATMs on UCSC Campus

The Bush Administration has proposed that the federal government provide $700 billion to buy bad debt from financial institutions. The financial bailout comes in response to a "credit crisis" largely caused by a drop in housing prices combined with defaults on home loans caused by shady and often illegal lending practices. While the bailout will help financial institutions that own derivatives based on mortgages, it will do little to help the more than 2 million Americans who lost their homes to foreclosure last year.

On Thursday September 25th, protests took place around the United States to oppose the bailout of Wall Street firms. In the Bay Area, protests were held in San Francisco, San Mateo, Palo Alto, and San Jose.
Event Announcements: 1 | 2 | 3 | | SF Protest Photos & Video (1 | 2) | Palo Alto Protest Photos
Fresno Protest Photos | NYC Indymedia Protest Photos | LA Indymedia Protest Photos | Democracy Now: Demonstrators Head to Wall Street to Protest Bailout

The SF Labor Council has also come out strongly against the bailout, stating that the "proposed bailout will fall on the shoulders of the working class, some $2,000.00 for every man, woman and child in America -- on top of the $3 trillion debt imposed on us by the two unending wars." They also point out that "the leaders of this economy oppose even minimal government assistance for the people, but demand it by the billions for themselves when they run into trouble caused by their own greed."

Jail—Mortgage Lenders, brokers, that Knowingly Sold or Made Fraudulent Home Mortgage Loans | Ralph Nader Asks, "Why Is There Need for a Bailout?" | Evasions, half-truths and lies | Daily Kos: What Is This Money Even For? | Bush Admin Faces Congressional Skeptics | Thinking About the Real Socialist Way Out | Retraining the ‘Beast’ | Naomi Klein: Now is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine | Democrats signal support for Wall Street bailout at Senate hearing | Financial Crisis & Desperate Emergency Measures | The Bailout: Obama’s Biggest Test | Forget the Banks: Bail Out the Poor | Read Messages Delivered In Opposition | Hundreds of Economists Urge Congress Not to Rush on Rescue Plan | Don’t get fooled again: The market is working properly | US Seen Losing Financial Supremacy

Community based human rights film-maker Simón Sedillo, whose work has centered on placing skills, cameras and editing equipment in the hands of communities in resistance, is on a speaking tour with three events in the Monterey Bay area. Sedillo has spent the last six years practicing and teaching community based video documentation in indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, in immigrant communities in the US, and with youth of color across the US. In Watsonville on September 25th, Santa Cruz on the 26th, and Monterey on the 27th, Sedillo will share some experiences and perspectives on the local and global implications of the peoples' struggle in Oaxaca.

Through lectures, workshops, and screenings Sedillo helps open a powerful space for dialogue on the effects of neoliberalism on indigenous communities in Oaxaca, immigrant communities around the world, and communities of color in the US. Through collaborative media projects, Sedillo’s work has contributed to a growing network of community based media activism whose primary objective is to share, teach, and learn from one another, about popular community based resistance and the collective construction of horizontal networks of popular power. Read More

On Tuesday, September 16 at 7:30pm, a reportback from the mobilizations against the political conventions this summer will be held in San Francisco, at Station40 (3030b 16th. Street). Video from the streets will be shown with presentations, and afterwards an open discussion will be held to examine activist strategies, police actions, media, successes, failures, and more.

"As the dust settles around the storm of protests surrounding the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Bay Area activists who were on the streets of Denver and the Twin Cities are coming together to talk about their experiences -- what strategies were employed, what went right, what went wrong, and where we will go from here?" Event Announcement

Indybay coverage of RNC Demonstrations and DNC Demonstrations

In the early morning of August 25th, three windows were broken and a surveillance camera knocked off the roof of the Ocean Street McDonald's in Santa Cruz.

In a post on Santa Cruz Indymedia, not lovin' it writes, "The Beijing Olympics have ended, but the repressive apparatus set up for the Games remains in place: some 300,000 surveillance cameras, 400,000 informants, and a general tightening of government control. This is always the result of these multinational spectacles. McDonald's, one of the major sponsors of the Olympics, also remains omnipresent and continues to reap its profits with four new restaurants and a large share of the advertising spectacle.

"People the world over hate McDonald's as a foremost symbol of American capitalism, and its franchises are targeted in almost every uprising and riot that erupts these days. Here in California too, we revolt against everything McDonald's is and represents. We know that the crap that they pass off as "food" is "cheap" in dollars, but is the direct result of worker exploitation, rainforest deforestation, etc. We're sick of the bullshit that is McDonald's, just as we are disgusted with the spectacle of the Olympics and enraged by the constant presence of surveillance cameras everywhere." Read More

On August 27th at around 10:30am, 5-6 police officers from three agencies made their way into the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, broke down every door, and confiscated all computers on the property. Computers taken included those used by the Slingshot Collective and East Bay Prisoner Support. Police also broke into cabinets, cut locks, and went through mail.

People arrived after being informed of the situation, and demanded that the police show a warrant. The police said they would show one once they were done, and they did. Both CopWatch and The Berkeley Daily Planet were there to cover the incident. The raid was conducted by the UC Berkeley Police, Alameda County Sheriff, and the FBI. The police stated that the computer equipment "may have been used to commit a felony." This is the first time there has been a raid since the infoshop opened 15 years ago.

Photos and Video | EFF Report With PDF Of Warrant | Initial Report | Media Release | Aug. 28: Benefit at Long Haul | FSRN coverage

Long Haul Website

As part of a week of international conference of Anti-Zionist Jews organized by the International Jewish Solidarity Network (IJSN), Reuven Abergel, a Mizrahi Anti-Zionist Jew, visited the Bay-Area. Reuven is one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panthers, an anti-Zionist, and a social activist. Abergel participated in several meetings and panels and spoke about Zionism, racism, and colonialism and ways to resist them. Abergel also discussed the oppression of Mizrahim in Israel and his vision of a united struggle against Zionism and Colonialism composed of Mizrahim and Palestinians and the need to educate the next generation of youth in Israel to become active in global solidarity work.

Abergel was also interviewed on local radio programs. In a response to a question on Flashpoints about the claim by Zionists that critics of Israel are Anti-Semitic, Abergel replied “it is just a way for them to sell lies, to try to protect themselves from the horrific crimes that they commit”. Abergel also added “I’m asking people in the world, how can you accept this occupation? If this was to happen in your country, your homes, you would not sleep. Wake up and stop it, or it will get to your homes”. Reuven Abergel also spoke about his personal experience as one of the Ringworm Children, a group of thousands of kids from Jewish-Arab background that the state of Israel did radioactive experiments on without their knowledge or family consent. The experiences were done under the supervision of the division of social medicine, a department in the Israeli ministry of health that implemented Eugenic ideas and philosophy.

Abergel immigrated with his family to Israel from Morocco in the fifties, and became politically active after a popular uprising by Moroccan Jews in Wadi-Salib Haifa in 1959. In 1971 Abergel founded the Israeli Black Panthers. Inspired by the Black Panthers in the U.S. and determined to stop the racist and discriminatory way in which the state of Israel treated its Arab-Jews, the Israeli Panthers led and organized many demonstrations and uprisings against the establishment. Abergel’s home became the headquarters for the Panthers, and Abergel’s Israeli citizenship was taken away making him a refugee in the state of Israel.

Since the death of the Israeli Black Panthers due to internal conflicts, Abergel has been a Mizrahi anti-Zionist activist and has organized many visits to Palestinian refugee camps and demonstrations against the apartheid wall. In 2002 Abergel met with Arafat when the latter was under an Israeli siege. Abergel also organizes regular food and water deployments to Bedouin villages that the states of Israel has yet to officially recognize, as a consequence these villages lack basic infrastructure such as roads electricity and water transportation.

Reuven Abarjel, discusses Zionism, Racism, and Colonialism-visits the Bay-area l Who’s against who? Between the conflict and the social, Reuven Abergel | Another Act in the Mizrahi-Palestinian Tragedy, Reuven Abarjel and Smadar Lavie I Reuven Abergel, Founder of Israel's Black Panthers, in support of the Academic Boycott of Israel l A small segment from The “Ringworm-Children” documentary, YouTube | Israel compensates for ringworm treatment | The Ringworm Children a collection of articles | Reuven Abergel’s web-page (Hebrew) | Israeli Denial of Right to Water as Means for Pushing Bedouins off their Land | Bedouin citizens of Israel denied water as means of transfer