After hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters were arrested Saturday night for attempting to violently seize control of a convention center, Mayor Jean Quan once again avoided criticizing the Occupy movement directly, instead blaming the violence on so-called “splinter groups.”
“This splinter group inside Occupy Oakland – the ones who advocate violence – are not in sync with the rest of the movement,” said Sue Piper, Quan’s spokeswoman. “People who have been involved with the national movement – and a lot of people who live in Oakland – are really fed up with this splinter group. This is not what Occupy is supposed to be about.”
It’s nice of the Oakland mayor’s office to inform the public this “is not what Occupy is supposed to be about.” But a slightly more trusted source – Occupy Oakland’s official website – begs to differ. Far from condemning the behavior, the organization is now soliciting bail money for the activists arrested during the botched building takeover, and organizing solidarity events.
Here’s what the Occupy Oakland’s media committee had to say about Quan’s claim the arrestees were part of an outside “splinter group,” in a statement charmingly titled “OPD Before and After: Seriously, F— the Pigs.”
Quan also wants the public to believe that Occupy Oakland is made up of outsiders, and there are few Oakland natives and people of color in the movement. This is definitively not true, and many of our most impassioned members, those organizing marches and occupations, are native Oaklanders who know all about the Oakland police’s tactics. Occupy Oakland says “F[---] THE POLICE” because OPD has for too long been allowed to brutalize Oakland’s communities, and now they are being used to stamp out our right to protest against the complex systems that allow, even encourage, that brutalization.
Some Occupy Oakland organizers may publicly condemn the general idea of violent tactics. But you’d be hard-pressed to find them condemning the specific actions of those arrested at Saturday’s riot. To the Occupiers, how could these actions possibly be criminal? When you honestly believe you’re living under an imperialist, oppressive system that uses institutionalized violence and discrimination to keep the 99 percent down, it becomes remarkably easy to excuse or gloss over instances of violent radical activism. As one radical student activist remarked after the Weather Underground’s U.S. Capitol Building bombing in 1971, “we didn’t do it, but we dug it.”
Good luck with that. The arrested heroes of socialist (non)labour should just stay put, take advantage of hot showers, a break from the rapists and thugs in their own midsts and the protection from Oakland's ordinaty citizens who may be more inclined to lynch them, than to pay for their bail so they can then skip town. n nOn Occupy's own website before someone there censors the comments : "Occupy, you have taken one of the most progressive cities in the country and turned us against you. You have spat in our faces, vandalizing and defecating in my neighborhood at my son’s school after we welcomed you last fall! After Occupy trashed the kids art and smashed the original architects’s model of city hall??? You seriously want money from us??? Go home and p___ in your own backyards!! You seriously want money from us???!!!??? Start washing the grafitti n nAll four comments on the donations plea so far are less than charitable. Is the OWS rabble supposed to be Obama's answer to the Tea Party, a replay of the Summer of Love and a way to mobilize votes? Good plan. Let's have more like this one. n n
These occupiers must suffer from mass sociogenic disorders. Nuts that keep getting nuttier
Where can I donate $$$ to Occupy Oakland Arrestees? So a few of the Youngsters haven't gotten the be peaceful or the bought and paid for MSM will turn on the scare Americans propaganda machine against the msg. Ooh (((scary))) they burned a flag that no longer stands for anything but Corporate Powers that Enslave YOU! Go ahead and bash the TINY splinter group #BlacBlock maybe that will teach them the POWER of Peaceful Civil Disobedience. Thanks for the Help!!! n n All the while Monsanto is Poisoning YOUR food, Oil Companies are Polluting YOUR Oceans and Planet and Banks are Enslaving YOU with Their Pyramid Usury Schemes! Hmmm a little frustration by a few teenagers versus Destruction and Subjugation of an Entire Planet pales in Comparison. Details Details
Your're not very bright.
The Occupy movement is one of would-be communist tyrants, who like all tyrants, claim to represent "the people." They claim to represent 99% of Americans, on the basis of no evidence. Any elected official can claim to represent his constituents, but the Occupy movement represents no one but its Occupiers and its financial backers, George Soros in particular. n If Angelsavant believes what he is saying, he can make his case with words and try to elect officials with his views. Violating the law and engaging in violence are simply wrong. He is greedy, for he wants the wealth of the banks in his own hands and that of the Occupy movement, "distributing" the wealth by being in charge of the distribution and living in luxury like Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Mao Tse Tung, and Fidel Castro.
Yeats put it best, the middle shall cease to hold. n nThere are a lot of people like me, who don't have trust funds, who worked their way through college (in my case, lugging heavy AV equipment through snowbanks), who see all the opportunities going to these spoilt brats who then are complaining about what they aren't having given to them. We have a level of visceral rage that truly is quite scary — our parents didn't give us trust funds but they did give us senses of personal responsibility and morality which is actually more valuable in the long run, and that is why you aren't seeing these "occupations" being "liberated" — and I mean "liberated" in the way that construction workers dealt with some of the early anti-war protests, with pipes and baseball bats… n nThe rage is there. These dirty hippies keep provoking it. And sooner or later — well, were Chicago Police Officers in 1968 inherently bad people? Or had they been pushed just too far and then a little bit further and snapped, en masse? And the Occupy folks are deliberately being provocative — and there will be similar consequences. It will happen… n nThe middle shall cease to hold…