The day the occupiers in Oakland were “removed” from the lawn in front of city hall Tommaso and I joined a peacful protest gathering just 12 blocks from where our boat dwells.
Before we got there a crowd of over 1000 people were tear gassed and the crowd that we joined was tear gassed two more times. The canisters were not only thrown into a peacefully protesting crowd but the second time the 
canisters were thrown all the way down the street to a smaller group of people who we were standing with.
A few nights later we went to a general assembly with over 3000 people. Together we listened to people speak and discussed and passed a proposal to have a city wide strike in Oakland which will take place tomorrow Nov. 2nd. I have been loosely involved in protests before but always felt nervous because all it takes is one person to disregard the 
agreement to remain peaceful and things get out of hand. I was incredibly proud of this group, who after getting tear gassed three times continued to keep the peace and remind each other to do the same. At one point a protester overturned a garbage can into the street and many people around called out to stop and helped pick it up and collect the spilled trash.
The ability for a group of people at this scale to organize and practice their right to protest peacefully for the need to be heard is humbling. I understand people are upset and protesting for different reasons, which is one of the criticisms of the occupy movement but I feel and sympathies with the outrage and the need to let our communities and country know that the system we have now is not working for the 99%. I am not going to get too political but I am very proud of and stand in solidarity with the occupy movement.
