Lessons of J28

I'm not sure the world needs another analysis of Occupy Oakland Move-In Day, but that's what you're gonna get anyway. I've spent too much time obsessing about it for the past few days to let all that cogitation go to waste. So here goes. Oh, and please note my beloved son took these pictures. What a good boy he is.


1. The target. There's general agreement that Occupy Oakland aimed a wee bit high with the selection of the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center as the movement's new home. It's tempting to think that OO knew all along that occupation would be an impossible task, but judging from the amount of furniture and other move-in material on hand during the march there seemed to be genuine hope that the occupation could and would take place. The Move-In Committee hinted that alternate targets were available should the Kaiser Center prove impregnable, but I'm not convinced this was the case: I suspect it was Kaiser or bust. And while I wanted to believe the Occupy meme that Move-In Day was a diversion intended to allow smaller, under the radar occupations to take place, I haven't heard of any such occupations actually happening. So: all the occu-eggs were in one very, very big basket.

2. The route. I'm not breaking any new ground when I suggest the march route was ill-chosen. I understand that marching through Laney was intended to trick or divert OPD, but the march fractured and dissipated as soon as it entered campus. When we got to the other side of Laney, there was considerable confusion about where to go next and how to get there. In retrospect I think the march should have gone directly to the Kaiser Center via 10th Street, with the sound truck loudly and proudly leading the way. The crowd would have stayed together and provided more of a challenge to OPD than the small group that ultimately reached the fenced off access road on the north side of the Center.



3. The battle. Why did OPD form a line where they did? Was it intended to draw the march into a confrontation? And why did the march take the bait? We could have walked up 12th Street with impunity and gone straight to the Travelers Building, or any other 'Plan B'. (Added bonus: as described in an earlier post, this would also have provided marchers the opportunity to directly confront Mayor Quan. I'd love to have seen her roll her eyes at 2,000 protesters).

4. The aftermath. I'm not going to comment much on the second march and the kettling: I wasn't there, and plenty of others have written about it at length. But I will say this: watching the livestream and hearing the 'Submit to that Arrest' announcement OVER and OVER and OVER again was one of the most dispiriting and bizarre experiences of my life. At first I thought it was surely a joke; some Occupy wag with a bullhorn openly mocking OPD. When reality sank in, it occurred to me that the phrase's constant repetition was intended as some sort of horrific, Orwellian hypnotic suggestion. We have always been at war with Eastasia. Submit to that arrest. It was chilling and horrifying from a distance; I can only imagine the sheer terror marchers in the kettle must have felt.



5. DOT. The 'diversity of tactics' argument is still hanging like a millstone around Occupy Oakland's neck. That said, and even though I remain convinced that non-violent resistance is the most effective means of protest, I've acquired a new appreciation for those bold enough (sensible enough?) to bring shields and helmets to these events. As long as those shields and helmets are genuinely there to defend the people, and aren't there as radical fashion statements (or indeed weapons to be hurled at OPD), I'm in favour.

OPD's strategy is always to provoke a violent response. If that wasn't clear before January 28th, it's surely crystal clear now. Throwing anything at the cops--including balloons, apparently--is all but guaranteed to provide the police the justification they need to start beating the crap out of people. Now, I'm not saying they won't beat the crap out of people even if nothing gets thrown--but it makes their propaganda that much less convincing if the poor darlings don't have any bwuises to show the mainstream media.

(Random thought: we all know baseball players have used steroids and amphetamines as performance enhancers.What's the likelihood that police officers also pop some speed before pulling Occupy duty? This is pure speculation, but drug abuse could explain some of OPD's more bizarre and brutal behavior.)



6. When it hurts when you do that...stop doing that. It may be time to seriously reconsider the 'rally...march...beatdown' cycle and develop a real diversity of tactics. Small scale actions at banks, flying pickets at American Licorice, tiny tepees and Care Bears at OGP...there's no end to the possibilities. Aquapy was a welcome example of creative protest tactics, its return post-J28 a massive breath of fresh air after a depressing day. Aquapy is clever, humorous, effective, and 100% peaceful: with those ingredients, you can't fail to win broader community sympathy and support. I'd like to see more actions along these lines--a little more dada and a little less black bloc would, IMHO, go a long way. (And if we can't levitate the Pentagon, perhaps we could try to levitate City Hall?)

What I saw at J28

This is going to be a long one.

My son and I arrived at Ogawa-Grant Plaza at 11:45 AM Saturday morning. I was hoping to be greeted by a massive crowd, but was disappointed to find no more than two hundred folk spread throughout the area. Oh sure, the 'usual suspects' were there...but I'm not one of them, and I'd been hoping that others of a less active persuasion would be joining in on this special day.

The excitement began within half an hour, as OPD snatched up Khali on an outstanding warrant that he didn't have. A crowd converged and the inevitable 'let him go' chant erupted. Some brainless wag behind us suggested that the police van be flipped over...with Khali inside. There's an idea.

Around 12:30 PM, the crowd moved to 14th and Broadway. There was a boring speech about hating the rich by a woman whose name I've forgotten, and then some uplifting words from Gerald Sanders (who seems to be an awesome gentleman) and Khali, who had already been released from police custody. Oops, OPD's bad (using the word as a noun, not an adjective, though that applies, too)!

Fashionably late but now numbering well into the hundreds, the march finally began around 1:15 PM. My son and I decided to stick close to the sound truck because a)it needed protection and b)there's nothing better than over-amplified dance music to get the blood flowing and the tinnitus acting up. (The hearing in my left ear is still recovering from standing right next to the bass amp at a Jam concert in 1980. Yeah, I was young and foolish.)



As the march set off down 14th St, the trepidation and fear I'd been feeling melted away. The crowd was still growing, the sound truck was pumping, the brass band was playing, the neighbours were waving at us from the apartment buildings above. Where was the ticker-tape? It was a party atmosphere and I was getting some exercise, too.

The mood began to shift ever so slightly when we discovered that the Occupy Oakland bus had already been cut off from the march by OPD. The folks on the sound truck had urged the crowd to stay together to prevent this from happening, but it was too late: instead of the bus, there were van loads of OPD bringing up the rear. We rejoined the crowd (which I am comfortable in estimating had reached close to 2,000 at this point) and proceeded to march towards Laney College.

At first I thought we were going to occupy Laney, but the sound truck urged everyone to walk through campus. It was at this point that I began to worry again, as the passageways through Laney are narrow and would have made perfect kettling points for the police. The march lost its cohesion and unity at these choke points: not only were people spread out too thinly, we had also lost the symbolic and communicative power of the sound truck. From here on we were on our own.

Police had formed a line to the north, so we all climbed up a small hill and reached an intersection near what appeared to be an abandoned OUSD building (if it's not abandoned I really feel sorry for the folks who have to work there). Aha. Here was the destination!

Except, of course, it wasn't, at which point Occupy's leaderless organizational model really began to work against it. Everyone had an opinion: let's keep marching, let's wait until more people join us; let's run, let's walk; slow down, speed up! I'm not sure how the indecision eventually was resolved, but the crowd meandered their way to...

...another narrow space! Fenced in on both sides, we continued to march towards our final destination. By now my paranoia was striking pretty deep...even with two thousand people in the street. And wouldn't you know it, there were the Officer Friendlies of OPD, waiting to greet us outside the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, a building that hasn't been used for anything for six years. SIX YEARS.

Well, that's definitely ambitious, I thought. I'd been assuming all along that we would end up at something a little smaller, something that might be a little easier to hold, or something where the building's ownership status was unclear enough to give OO some breathing space. The Kaiser Center, on the other hand, is huge, impossible to hold, and is owned by the City (who apparently have no need for it, but that's another story).

What to do? Despite my intentions of being nowhere near the front lines, here we were...right on the front line. As Melvin waggled his bright red Occupy Oakland sign (I do love that sign), the crowd began raining motherfuckers on the plods. We moved away when folks decided they didn't like the fence between them and OPD. Hey, if it was up to me, OPD would always be on the other side of a fence. To each his own, I guess.


Boom, and a cloud of something began enveloping the fence-phobes. We walked slowly away from the crowd, now obscured by either tear gas or smoke...I'm still not sure which. The group reconvened for an impromptu 15-minute discussion while the rest of us leaned against some concrete barriers, where a nice woman gave out oranges to people. One of the Michoacan ice cream men from the Fruitvale came by, and I offered to buy my son a cone.

Me: "It might be your last chance to have an ice cream."
Son: "Why? Do you think the police are going to kill us?"
Me: "No, silly, because the ice cream man will be moving on soon!"

We then gently chided a gentleman for using the word 'bitch' to describe the police. I guess he hasn't been participating in Occupy Patriarchy.

Finally the Long March recommenced. Where we were going? Back to the plaza, I think--but the catnip scent of OPD beckoned, tempting and taunting the now riled up anarchists amongst us. The marching stopped as soon as the police line on Oak Street was sighted (I'd love to know why there was a line there, as the march did not initially seem to be heading in that direction). Someone started chanting 'fuck the police' and a few dozen others joined in, at which point I decided our day of direct action was over. I was not about to get myself and my son tear-gassed and/or arrested, so we calmly peeled off from the crowd just as the first flash bangs went off. (For what happened next, see my previous post.)

We went to Broadway and waited for the bus to take us back to our nice, quiet, safe home. Three senior citizens joined us. An African-American woman was complaining about owing $900 tax on her meagre 2011 income of $19,000. A white woman was in great physical pain and mental distress; she was almost in tears about her lot in life: "I'm so tired of being poor", she said. It was the perfect reminder of why Occupy exists. The day may have ended in failure, but the movement goes on, because it has to.

I'll be back in a day or two with a deeper critique of J28.