Occupy Oakland explodes (photo by The Black Hour)! If there’s any gauge of the saying “The Whole World’s Watching!” It’s Google Trends, which, again, has Oakland, California among the top two for something negative: the last time was for the Oscar Grant Riots.
Only the Oakland Raiders have enjoyed trend ranks, and for good news related to the football business – trading for Carson Palmer.
Occupy Oakland is now forever marked by a decision that could cost Oakland Mayor Jean Quan her job. Calling for the use of 500 police officers in a pre-dawn raid Tuesday morning, followed by more tear gas bombs Tuesday night, has thousands of Oaklanders upset with Quan.
A mayoral recall effort led by long-time Oaklander Gene Hazzard, which already picked up steam before Occupy Oakland, gaining more than the requisite number of signatures to be “on,” is was talk around Downtown Oakland as the police action against Occupy Oakland resumed last night.
While Occupy Oakland could have made better efforts to negotiate with the Mayor, this is not only not Mayor Quan’s finest moment, by stark contrast to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums during the Oscar Grant riots, she’s no where to be seen. Jean didn’t even show up to a press conference set last night; Oakland Councilmembers Larry Reid and Ignacio De La Fuente represented Oakland.
As I talked with Ignacio for a video coming later today, Occupy Oakland has placed liberals against liberals. Sanjiv Handa, also in a video coming later today, said it best: “This (the Occupy Oakland people) is Jean’s constituency: single mothers with kids, teachers, educators, all out there..”
And Jean’s arranged for them, veterans too, to be gassed and shot in the face with rubber bullets:
Handa reports that the Mayor and Councilmembers received “thousands of calls in protest of the police action.”
As Green Party Candidate Don Macleay wrote in a letter that deserves its’ own blog post:
I stuck my neck out in person, in public and on line telling the protestors to engage, to accept dialog, to back away from any confrontation and to carry ourselves with dignity out of respect for our fellow citizens and out of respect for the righteousness of our cause.
It seems that the same message was needed inside our city government this week. No wonder that they never returned calls. And in the end, the police wracked more violence in a couple hours, destroyed more property and hurt more people that Occupy Oakland did in two weeks. Keep in mind, there was no riot, no emergency, no move made by the protestors other than to refuse to leave. It was the city of Oakland and the police that initiated the violence and chose its time.
Many things could have been done instead, especially since there was no urgent problem.
For one they could have given our offer to act as a go between a try. No calls returned.
How was that any different from the folk at the General Assembly refusing to speak with the city?
All I can says is unless a better way is developed, and soon, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall Street, and Occupy Atlanta, and all the Occupies in America could result in the destruction of (or perhaps the transformation of) the liberal base in this country.
It’s hard to vote for politicians that gas and shoot your friends.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll