Hella Oakland

10/28/2011

My understanding is that is exactly what the protestors intend to do.

For the best coverage of Occupy Oakland, I recommend
OAKLAND LOCAL. Click on the name or the photo to the left to take you to the latest updates on Mayor Quan and the protestors.

You can also see the city's very outdated updates HERE on the city's website.

Yesterday I spoke with a city employee who said she could not even walk to Walgreens without going through a back door and exiting far down the street, that's how tight things are in the buildings around Frank Ogawa Plaza. She also said that the city simply did not have the funds to pay police this much overtime. Her sympathies lay on both sides, she affirmed. But that when protestors did not allow paramedics through to help a fellow occupier who fell 14 feet from a tree, her patience was tried.

For my part, I'd still like to know why the mayor has to travel to Washington to seek federal aid. Doesn't she have a team to do that? Which hotel did she stay in? What was her per diem? And did she fly first class?

Something tells me that when these questions are asked and answered, people will not be any more thrilled with her than they are now. Just sayin'.

GG from Cincy

10/28/2011 16:19:36

I don't believe for one minute that she was innocent in this violence! She ordered the police to clear the streets of protestors. She must be held accountable, and she must RESIGN. I have heard nothing about protestors not allowing paramedics not allowing help to a fellow protestor. But I SAW police shooting tear gas into a crowd of peaceful protestors. I SAW Scott Olsen on the ground after that. I SAW police throw an object into the protestors who were trying to help Olsen, which exploded and released gas. This is NOT the country I thought it was. Even the Egyptians are planning to march to support the protestors in Oakland. How ironic is that?! They are supporting our right to civil liberties!!! I am so ashamed of this country.

Laura Novak

10/28/2011 17:41:08

I don't disagree with you at all. There is a protest organizing via Twitter for a few days from now. They are calling for a general strike. Quan now has world wide fame/infamy. The night I sat in that apartment with her while she wouldn't answer my question and couldn't manage to push the hair out of my eye stays with me. I doubted then that she had the chops for this job. It's now too little too late for her reactions. I am curious where this will go. Thanks for reading and checking in from Cincy.

Ottoline

10/28/2011 18:42:08

I hope the general strike on Nov 2 gets organized.

I'd want to keep my family at home that day. It would be a way for us to show solidarity for OWS as much as to protest the Oakland problems.

It is so hard to have a peaceful protest, esp when feelings run high. I feel for both sides, while not excusing the situation, the rubber bullets, the lobbed tear gas, or the injuries. But I bet 95% of the officers are sick about this too.

Diane

10/29/2011 01:36:03

Isn't anybody reading this blog old enough to remember the Vietnam war protests or the '60's and '70's and Kent state and the Democratic National Convention of '68?

Police brutality against protesters is nothing new.
It happened 40+ years ago and it happening now.

OzMud link

10/29/2011 04:04:02

I was part of a protest held at S.F.State and it was pretty tame. Lots of speakers who could barely be heard - a few gigglers high on pot - but mostly a tame feeling overall.

Kent State blew me away. I could not wrap my head around any of it.

I did watch on TV other protests in which the police looked actually scaredd and when pushed didn't hesitate to push back - which only exacerbates an already volatile situation. We should have learned more back then.

I can't remember - did the Dem Natl convention and kent state happen before or after rioting in Watts and Newark? I ask because it seems to me the lines of peaceful protest and racial rioting were very blurred and may have influenced city and state over-reaction to any proposed protest.

mistah charley, ph.d. link

10/29/2011 08:48:16

I, charley, was there.

Timing of some events in the 1960s and 1970s: Watts riot - 1965. Police riot against demonstrators at Chicago National Democratic Convention - 1968. Kent State shooting by National Guard, 1971 ("4 Dead in Ohio", song recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young).

May the Creative Forces of the Universe stand beside us (metaphorically speaking), and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above - and have mercy on our souls, if any.

FrostyAK

10/29/2011 12:25:56

@ Diane - I was there from '66 to '70, protesting the war at my University. Things were pretty tame where I was. Sit-ins, armbands, and such. No violence, few arrests.

I'm not sure I ever cried more than the day Kent State happened. That was the day I grew up. I knew the country/world was going to 'hell in a handbasket'. I hoped a huge lesson had been learned by those in government, but doubted it.

Those lessons came 40+ years ago. They have been forgotten by the majority, and a large number from those days are gone now. We can only hope that the young people will continue to fight the good fight, peacefully.

I cried again when I saw the video of Pete Seeger at age 92 walking with the OWS protesters for 30 blocks in NYC, using a walker. Arlo was with him.

"How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see? The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind."

Ottoline

10/29/2011 12:33:09

I remember that there was this phenomenon called "police riots" back then -- a term used after the fact to try to understand why the police over-reacted.

That's why I wish the Nov 2 stay-home day (or something like it) would gel: there's so much potential for violence that I see as cruel and unnecessary. I see the protesters suffering, the kind of people I know who are police officers (Moms and Dads) are not eager to do this job, the shopkeepers at the site suffer, and the MSM covers the wrong things.

Not that we can't all pull in our belts a little (re the harsh criticism of the woman who is disrupted from getting her usual latte in the AM), but I'd like to see something I can participate in myself, and something that does not hurt those innocent of the 1% problem.

So I'm moving money on the 5th, and hoping for a stay-home day on the 2nd, or whenever it is called.

Laura Novak

10/29/2011 14:04:53

Frosty, I got goosebumps when I read those lyrics again. I am not sure that any generation has captured the passion or the "glory" of your generation and the protests they created. The folks I know who lived hard during those years have a unique quality to them. They stand out, for me, as upstanding citizens who knew that what was happening was wrong. And did something about it.

So folks are now doing something about it. Is is organized? Is it making a difference? I don't know. But it is most certainly "viral." And that is something new and marvelous to behold.

I want to explore more this concept of moving our money. How much more money does Jamie Dimond have to make before we realize that it's really not right?

FrostyAK

10/29/2011 16:47:58

Patronize your local credit unions. Make the big banks hurt. It is peaceful, and not dangerous. I've had an account with the local credit union for over 20 years. They can issue debit and credit cards also too.

Here's an article about the guy who was injured by the police in Oakland:

http://tinyurl.com/4yxvo6t

The mayor is responsible. Whatever happened to "the buck stops here"? That woman sounds about as incompetent as $P was as mayor.

curiouser

10/29/2011 18:32:38

I'm old enough to remember the protests of the 60-70s. I was wholeheartedly opposed to the Viet Nam war and supportive of the protest movement. My participation, however, was limited to getting pregnant to keep my boyfriend out of the draft pool when his college deferral was ending. I envy and applaud those of you who had the awareness and assurance to actively protest.

LakeLucilleLoon

10/29/2011 22:30:57

Curiouser:

My dad stayed out of Vietnam because he was in grad school and had a baby on the way (me). I'm so happy that my father never had to be part of that conflict.

Banyan

10/29/2011 22:48:56

I was at the Oakland induction center "action"/riot back in 66 (I think that was the year ... but I'm getting old.) It was major.

At 5 in the morning,helicopters with searchlights were above us circling. The Oakland PD was facing us in full regalia. I was in the first line with my roommate (an Ursula Andress look-a -like). We gave the police flowers. They didn't club us when they charged the crowd; others were not so lucky.

I remember seeing one of my "boyfriends" overturn a Volkswagon. It made an impression on me... not entirely favorable.

I *really* dislike civil unrest, and know the depths where it can take us, but if there was ever a moment for it, it is now.

Ottoline

10/29/2011 23:19:31

The thing about the demonstrations so far is that they set parts of the 99% against each other. Like your giving the police flowers, Banyan -- that served to bridge that police/demonstrator barrier and remind us how much we have in common. It was not the police who were our opposition re the Vietnam War.

That's why I'm longing for another mode: the stay-home-day would work, except some of us have great employers who would be hurt.

Something like "send $1 on Nov X to OWS c/o Obama White House" -- I don't know.

FrostyAK

10/29/2011 23:40:13

Here's an excellent video on how to tell the 'too big to fail' banks what we think of them, peacefully and safely. Return Junk Mail to Banks With Message:

http://tinyurl.com/3gvkm9q

Ottoline

10/30/2011 00:14:42

Ha! Frosty AK: I was just going to post the same video -- just did it on IM. I'll save up everything until Nov 5 and send it then, and then I'll just assemble the envelopes and save them for whatever next milestone OWS has.

V ictoria link

10/30/2011 06:57:01

Reminder: You can use the return junk mail with any organization. I somehow got on some very right-wing lists, and that's what I did when they asked me for money.

I do not like the idea of revolution and riots at all, but that is what often happens when income disparity becomes too great. And, after all, what other recourse do the poor have? They're told, you have to obey the law, but what do they do when the laws are being used to disenfranchise them and keep you down? But riots and revolutions - and I know we're not there yet but we may yet get there - are very hard to control, and who knows where they may lead?

FrostyAK

10/30/2011 12:07:27

@Otto - why just send the spam back on Nov 5th? Put all that crap in a pile and when you have a few minutes of free time just stuff envelops. Mail in bunches when you are going to the post office anyway. We have to support the postal service, you know that entity that tells us it is bankrupt.

Think of it as being patriotic.

Ottoline

10/30/2011 12:57:28

Frosty: I'm thinking there are others like me who do not bank with B of A or the other big banks (my credit union has been just great for 25 yrs: perfect service and rarely a line). So if Nov 5 is also accompanied by a big blast of this returned junk mail -- it would take lots of folks to do this, not just my pathetic little mailing. But imagine if a million of us did this? On a given day. i think it would make an impact. Just like sending $1 each to "OWS c/o The White House." If lots of people did it. But only if.

lilly lily

10/31/2011 15:51:06

Once the Wisconsin protest began, it was inevitable that more would follow around the country.

As far as Newark, back in the sixties my husband said it was going to happen from what he was observing. Though the violence was shocking and that city has never really recovered in spite of vast amounts of money and spruceing up. I won't go there, except to the museum or concerts and then with a group. In and out.

And it is almost 50 years later and much renovation. No one I know wants to go there without support. Muggings.

Like a pressure cooker, when it blows it blows.

My own bank is great, have been banking there since 1968. It has flourished and prospered without any scandal. Good management.

But credit card interest rates at almost 27% are an abomination.

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Hella Oakland

Laura Novak

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