Wednesday, June 9th was the fifth and last day of the RNC 8 motion hearings.

Judge Warner rejected the defense’s motion to call FBI informant Andrew Darst, and with that the oral arguments of the probable cause hearing ended. Both sides will submit further written arguments and the judge will take the issues under advisement after July 14th, determining whether there is probable cause to charge the defendants at all. If she determines that there is not enough evidence to determine probable cause, the charges will be thrown out.

On June 1st, family, friends, and community activists gathered in front of Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malleys office in Oakland to demand a vigorous prosecution of Johannes Mehserle for the murder of Oscar Grant. Those gathered solemnly recognized that the Judge overseeing the trial, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald Perry, has granted a number of requests from Mehserle's defense attorney Michael Rains intended to shift the blame to Oscar Grant for his own murder. The next day jury questionnaires were handed out in Los Angeles Superior Court and — after numerous motions have been heard in pre-trial hearings in LA this year and a jury was selected last week which includes no African Americans — the long-awaited trial began with opening statements on June 10th. Alameda Deputy DA David Stein declared in his opening remarks, "The shooting of Oscar Grant was the result of [BART police] emotions taking over. It was the result of aggression taking over for training and discipline." He asked jurors, “What happens when an officer believes he has the right to mistreat, abuse people in a public setting?" The LA Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant has made a call — "All Out to the Courthouse" — for June 14th, this Monday of the first full week of the trial. In Oakland, a mass community gathering has been called for 14th Street and Broadway at 6pm the day of the Mehserle verdict.

Reports, Court Filings, Photos, Audio, & Video: Video of family and supporters on the first day of Mehserle's trial in LA - June 10, 2010 | A Cursory Look at Some of the Issues of the Johannes Mehserle Trial - FIVE | KPFA: Update from Thandisizwe Chimurenga on the Oscar Grant Trial | Murder Trial Begins for the Killer of Oscar Grant | Oscar Grant took photo of Mehserle pointing taser at him before Mehserle drew gun and shot him in the back | Mehserle's Defense Moves to Prevent Jurors Knowing Pirone Yelled "Bitch Ass Nigger" at Oscar Grant | Jury Set with No African American Jurors, Defense Seeks to Exclude Video in Oscar Grant Trial | The jury in People v. Mehserle has been sworn in | Potential Jurors in Mehserle Murder Trial Questioned on Oakland, Race, Tasers, Police, and BART | Sunset Vigil for Oscar Grant and All Police Victims Warns that Justice Is in Danger

Financial Support Requested: Court Update on Holly, JR and Drew of the Oakland 100

A Few Previous Related Indybay Features: BART Action Disrupts Trains with "No Justice, No Rush" in San Francisco | Judge Orders Mehserle to Be Tried in Los Angeles County | Mehserle's Trial for Murder of Oscar Grant Ordered Moved Due to Protesters & Jury "Bias" | Johannes Mehserle's Racist Change of Venue Motion Cites Indybay and Community Activists | Preliminary Hearing Concludes for BART Police Officer in the Murder of Oscar Grant III | Mehserle Arrested, Protests Continue | Rally and Rage Over BART Police Murder of Oscar Grant

Full Coverage of the Justice for Oscar Grant Movement

After more than a year in a Tel Aviv hospital, Bay Area activist and photo-journalist Tristan Anderson has returned home to California. Tristan was critically injured when he was shot in the head at close range with a metal high-velocity tear gas canister at the Israeli Separation Wall on March 13, 2009, while taking photos following a demonstration against the apartheid wall in the West Bank village of Ni'lin. The shooting caused severe traumatic brain injury and blindness in his right eye. Tristan, 39 years old, has not yet regained the use of the left side of his body and faces a long period of cognitive and physical rehabilitation and remains in a wheelchair. However, in the last several months he has made significant strides forward, including regaining his ability to speak. His partner Gabby recently posted a detailed update on his condition on JusticeforTristan.org 

under health updates. He is currently staying at his family’s home in the Sierra foothills, and looking forward to reuniting with his extensive community in the Bay Area.

Tristan Anderson has participated as a photo-journalist and as a dedicated activist in a variety of local and international campaigns over the years, including Latin American solidarity work, anti-war activism, involvement in forest campaigns including Headwaters Forest and the 2-year long Save the Oaks tree-sit campaign on UC Berkeley campus, as well as serving food to the homeless with Food Not Bombs for years, and riding with Critical Mass bicycle activists.

Read More | JusticeforTristan.org

Previous Related Indybay Feature: Justice for Palestine, Rachel Corrie, and Tristan Anderson (March 2010)

Presenters included Alex Blair, history professor at Buffalo State College, Richard Lipsitz, of the Western Area Labor Federation, Frank Messiah, president of the Buffalo NAACP, Donna Chapman, Secretary of the Working Family Party, and Tom Michael of the Colgate University of Department of Economics.

Alex Blair helped to define this freedom which corporations have fought for years to develop and maintain. He explained the decisions which have legally made corporations into individuals with the same rights as any other person. He also detailed the birth of the modern conservative movement as starting in the mid 1930’s as the right wing began to react to the power that was being gained by the left. Workers won the right to collectively bargain, the government viewed its role as promoting social good and regulating business and this provoked a reaction from the right wing, which slowly began rebuilding an ideology that would restrict economic power for people broadly while promoting the power and freedom of corporations and big business.

Frank Messiah of the NAACP spoke about the history of racism in the United States and how it has underlying ideas of racism have been integrated into the ideology of the Tea Party. This ideology finds itself in the perception that white Americans are entitled to certain jobs and that they are “their” jobs while pushing anti-immigration efforts. Messiah also spoke about the unequal lending policies by major financial institutions that led to the fiscal crisis and reminded labor movement supporters that the NAACP has taken 13 of the 14 major lenders to court to fight their unequal lending and higher interest rates for non-white lenders.

Richard Lipsitz and Donna Chapman both called for the need for the labor movement to make itself the alternative to reactionary movements like the Tea Party. The labor movement has been under sustained political, ideological, and economic attack since 1980, and Lipsitz argues that it is time the labor movement start taking the offensive. Chapman and Lipsitz pushed a strong legislative agenda as the means for moving the labor movement forward. This agenda included passing the Good Jobs Now bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, fighting for Fair Trade, and rebuilding American infrastructure. As Lipsitz closed he commented, “it is on these issues that we should fight, and in so doing, we can draw a clear distinction between ourselves and the demagogues who masquerade as voices of ordinary people under the guise of the Tea Party”

The large audience was very receptive to a message of building the labor movement in a direction that would ideologically and politically challenge the Tea Party movement. This sort of broadly organized political education is an essential tool toward rebuilding labor on a solid foundation for the difficult task of renewing its former political and economic strength. Many people at the event were excited and seemed to have a strengthened understanding about their political position as part of the labor movement. Let’s hope that these sort of political education workshops continue and build a solid core of active and militant labor leaders.

Being presented in the consolidation plan put forward by the Red Cross is a provision that includes eliminating 60 Buffalo-based telecommunication jobs. This is a provision that is actively opposed by the union local.

The rally was attended by supporters from many community organizations, other unions, and other CWA members that work for Verizon. While these workers have gone back to work, it’s incredibly important that we all keep our eyes on this negotiation process and see that it moves forward in a way that benefits working people. If the workers don’t get broad public support, we can only expect more stalling and cut backs from the Red Cross. read more

After talking with some of the folks with the vigil, I saw Israeli flags down at the corner of Weslayan and 59 on the east side of the street where we were. I walked down there and around the corner, and counter about 35 people with Israeli flags, signs saying “I <3 Israel” “Support Israel” and similar signs including ones calling for the US and Obama to stand with Israel and Obama. By the height of the protest, there were probably 60 or so Israel supporters, which is one of the biggest turn outs I can remember at a Houston protest. The crowd attending the vigil for the people killed on the flotilla and in solidarity with the people of Gaza eventually swelled to more than a hundred, probably 120ish folks. We were just must less punctual than than the Israel supporters.

Another member of Veterans for Peace, Chapter 72, Harvey Thorstad reminds the crowd of the tragedies of war, but not just the fallen and physically maimed soldiers, or even their families, but those tens of thousands who have returned emotionally scarred by what they have witnessed and in which they have participated. Thorstad recounts examples of what happens in war, soldiers killing innocent civilians and having to live with this the remainder of their lives.

War is hell for many reasons, most of which have no relevance to one's life until those heavy circumstances arrive, often squeezing heart, mind and soul out into streams of homelessness, drug addiction, and the inability to cope with civilian life.