Transparency is a four-letter word

"For the record, I don't hate livestreamers. I just don't trust transparency."
--Comrade Kalamity on Twitter, March 27th 2012.

This could just as easily have been an off the record statement attributed to an anonymous Obama administration flunky, but this is where we are: some Occupy supporters are now eagerly mimicking the high-security, everything-is-classified government they supposedly hold in such contempt. Remember when the future President promised his would be "the most transparent administration ever"? Well, welcome to Occupy Oakland 2012: the populist movement so terrified of its own shadow that everything must be negotiated in a windowless room with the lights off.

How did we get to the point where someone filming a picnic can be threatened with bodily harm? It's been a slow, but inexorable process set in motion, I believe, when the Occupy Oakland GA failed to endorse non-violence back in November, thus setting the stage for the entire movement to serve as a shield for the tiny sub-set of black bloc practitioners and fuck-shit-uppers now in control. I've written before about how this presented a massive challenge for OO, but I was naive and optimistic at the time and thought that cooler heads would prevail. As the disastrous March 31st FTP walkabout proved, however, the seeds planted on that November night have now come into full bloom.

Quite simply and obviously, it is transparency and livestreaming that gave birth to Occupy in 2011, and it is opacity and embedded journalism that will be its death in 2012. Many livestreamers have already accepted the narrative and will no longer film revolutionary actions that could be misconstrued as vandalism. Others have been neutered to the point of ineffectiveness by filming only those who give consent--an impossible standard that results in endless shots of marching feet and little else. (A blessed few have been anointed as the chosen ones by the OO hierarchy, but quite how such decisions are made is another deep mystery. I’m sure smoke-filled rooms must be involved.)

Before Occupy, I had never supported any political movement or party in my life; it was the livestreaming of October 25th that convinced me, and many others, that this was a movement worthy of support. To discover that this movement has now forsaken two of the attributes that made it so attractive in the first place--transparency and non-violence--has been deeply disappointing.

Let me conclude with a personal statement for the sake of both clarity and transparency. I plead guilty to the following charges: I am a 49-year old white middle-class male with a full-time job, three writing gigs, three cats, a blog, a spouse highly skeptical of Occupy, and a son in high school. I am a pacifist. I am also a socialist who believes that one of government's greatest responsibilities and duties is the redistribution of wealth. I am not opposed to direct actions; I supported the General Strike, the Port shutdowns, and Move-In Day (I marched to the Kaiser Center and beyond). I am not opposed to flag burning, as long as you're burning a flag you bought or made yourself. I still consider myself a community ally of Occupy Oakland and I will be out on the street on May 1st. Keep the faith, baby, and Occupy Everything—but keep the cameras turned on!

(Cross-posted at Occupy Symposium)

The Peace Police

Just typing those words makes me cringe.

I suppose there are worse things to be called at Occupy Oakland, but 'peace police' is an especially nasty pejorative in these parts. When used by those of an insurrectionary persuasion, it suggests not only collaboration with the powers that be, but a whole litany of other unpleasant stereotypes: the typical peace police officer is a muesli-eating, middle-class, censorious, wet white liberal in Birkenstocks. For bonus points, you might also be an aging hippie who's trying to relive the glory days of the '60s.

If you're a pacifist, or are simply convinced that non-violent civil disobedience should be the Occupy movement's preferred tactic, you might even consider the phrase 'peace police' fightin' words--only, being the people we are, we're not actually going to start a fight about them. So what are the options?

One could, of course, sit at home (preferably in the dark) and steam about the unfairness of it all--I admit that's generally my first reaction in such situations. Steam about something long enough, however, and sometimes the proverbial light bulb goes on--and not just when your spouse enters the room and flips the switch to the on position.

In such fashion did my own light bulb illuminate. To wit: I'm no longer going to be embarrassed by the label 'peace police', I'm going to embrace it.

Picture this: it's Move-In Day 2.0. After gathering at OGP, three thousand plus Occupiers embark on a march to the long vacant C. Europa furniture store near Broadway and 51st. A cadre of faith leaders, civil rights activists, elders, veterans, and other clearly identified Peace Police lead the way north on Broadway, shielding the crowd from the Violence Police. Masked anarchists are still out in force with their trash can shields, of course--remember, this is a radically inclusive movement--but they're now the second line of defense, and are, in fact, being protected by the Peace Police whilst sampling the schadenfreude entree with a side order of poetic justice.

What would the Violence Police do when confronted by the Peace Police? Would they repeat their mistakes of October 25th and eagerly beat the crap out of them, or teargas them, or shoot them with 'less lethal' rounds? Or would they have second thoughts about once again attacking protesters in clerical garb, or in military uniform, or in wheelchairs? I honestly don't know, of course, but I do know this: the tactics of J28 didn't work, and arguably exacerbated the situation. The Peace Police would, at the very least, force the Violence Police to adjust their tactics, and would make it that much harder for them to win the PR war. And who knows--they might even win the grudging admiration of the masked and anonymous crowd.

Paranoia strikes deep

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

I've been thinking for some time that Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth should be the official Occupy Oakland anthem. Despite being written by the appalling Stephen 'Love the One You're With' Stills, it remains the most evocative song of its era, its timely lyrics presciently describing exactly what's been happening here in Oakland over forty years later. It's a song that still sends a shiver down my spine--even though I've probably heard it a thousand times.

As the media committee drama played out over the last few weeks, the already high levels of paranoia at Occupy Oakland seemed to scale new heights. Whether or not someone had actually infiltrated OO on behalf of the Feds was almost beside the point: Occupational Awareness unleashed a wave of suspicion, anger, back-biting, fear, distrust and division--much of it in the form of inelegant and snarky 140-character Tweets--that surely delighted our local and national law enforcement agencies. It's yet another unfortunate and energy-sapping turn of events, once again putting the movement on the back foot.

As an Occupy Oakland community ally, I've experienced hints of this paranoia first hand. My efforts to reach out to the movement have generally failed. OOers don't seem to reply to e-mails from people they don't know, a precaution I can understand: after all, I choose not to communicate via phone, Facebook, or Twitter. At the same time, however, I think it's unfortunate that the atmosphere has become so poisonous that many Occupiers don't even bother to tell me to go away and stop bothering them. It also stands in sharp contrast to my outreach efforts to other Occupys, which have proven considerably more fruitful.

Things are a bit better when I show up in person. While I've had some genuinely enlightening conversations with Occupiers, however, many seem to look askance at me and hold back. Is it my mild-mannered, middle-aged appearance that suggests I might be a cop or an informer? Or is it simply the normal suspicion tightly connected insiders hold towards outsiders encroaching on their territory? There's more than a whiff of Dick Hebdige's subculture theory in the OO air, and I am definitely on the outside looking in: for those of us who weren't in OGP camps 1 and 2 or didn't get tear-gassed on October 25th, we'll never have the necessary street cred. I'm--quelle horreur!--a poseur.



At the same time, there's so much good stuff currently going on at OO that it's hard to get too downhearted about things. The Occupy4Prisoners event at the Grand Lake (which even included a Hayward teacher's rendition of For What It's Worth)--though not strictly an Occupy Oakland event--was an amazing, moving, and powerful evening. With foreclosure actions, community barbecues and the efforts of the Occupy Brooms Collective all ongoing, there's a lot for those of us in the movement's nefarious non-violence wing to be happy about. Perhaps I just need to grow a thicker skin about the other stuff--or perhaps I'd better put the Buffalo Springfield records away for a while.

Outside Agitators

Every time there's a protest in Oakland, there's a whole lot of blather in the corporate press about those evil and mysterious 'outside agitators' who come to cause trouble and use our city as their 'playground'.

The storyline was alive and well during the Oscar Grant demonstrations of 2009 (otherwise known as The Defenestration of Foot Locker) and is once again lurking openly within mainstream reporting about Occupy Oakland actions. After J28, we were solemnly informed that 'only' 35% of those arrested were Oakland residents. Setting aside the fact that 35% of 409 is still a pretty impressive 143, the implication is that if those wicked people had stayed in Berkeley/Fremont/San Francisco/Alpha Centauri where they belong, none of this trouble would have happened!

It's an attractive argument, and I must admit I once gave it some credence. It's easy to fall into a parochial mindset, especially when you've set down roots and lived in one place for a while. It's nice to believe that the folks who live in 'your' city wouldn't get up to any naughty business without the incitement of craftily manipulative foreigners from the badlands on the other side of Alcatraz Avenue. But it also defies logic.

For example: I've lived in Oakland for thirty years. I consider myself an 'Oaklander'. By the logic of the outside agitator argument, I should, therefore, limit my protest participation to actions within the city limits. But wouldn't it be just as logical for me to restrict my direct actions to the three cities in which I've actually worked during those thirty years: Emeryville, San Francisco, and Berkeley? After all, I've never worked a single day in Oakland, unless you count the occasional afternoon spent at the Northern California Independent Bookseller's Association annual meeting at the downtown Hyatt. Based on all those eight-hour work shifts (plus commute time), I've probably spent at least ten of the last thirty years 'outside' the city in which I 'live'.

And what of my national origins? I wasn't born in this country. Perhaps I don't have the right to protest anywhere in the United States, never mind Oakland. Do I need to 'go back to where you came from', as has been suggested to me on numerous occasions, to protest about Deanna Santana's ridiculously generous salary to whomever will listen to me in the Greater Merseyside area?

This issue came home to me last week, when I spent time supporting the Ice Cream Bloc's autonomous action outside the Wells Fargo Bank on Piedmont Avenue. As I was engaging in a very pleasant chat with a nice young Occupier named Matt, an angry, red-faced man with bulging neck veins confronted us and asked us if we were responsible for the bank closure, and if we were, how dare we attract such riff-raff to our events? As he steamed away, he turned and shouted "I live in this neighborhood!", to which I replied, "so do I!" This clearly struck the gentleman as preposterous: he'd assumed that a bunch of alcoholic criminals had been bussed in from Berkeley/Fremont/San Francisco/Alpha Centauri to disrupt his day.

I'm going to have more to say about this interesting encounter in a future column, but for now I want to keep the focus on the question of 'outsider' protest. I felt very comfortable on my home turf--this action took place within blocks of my house--but did this man have a point? Does one's right to protest decrease the farther one gets from their home address? And if you're homeless,
does this mean you have absolutely no right to protest at all? Considering the zeal with which OPD broke up Occupy Oakland's encampments, and with which other encampments were broken up after they started attracting 'undesirable elements', this may be one of the unwritten rules of the 'legitimate protest' game. Those who have the most 'skin in the game' aren't even allowed to participate in the game.

The argument leads to the inescapable conclusion that property invests people with rights, and the more property you own the more rights you have. After all, in addition to living in the neighborhood, Angry Bulgy Vein Man also owns a business (something he felt was important enough to mention to us). This is my neighborhood, and I own a business, and the fact that a group of 'alcoholic criminals' prevented me from visiting my bank is an outrage!

More on ABV Man next time.

Top Ten Reasons I Have Never Attended an Occupy Oakland GA

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've been a community ally of Occupy Oakland since October 25th. I've attended events and marches, spoken in favour of OO at two City Council meetings, donated to OO and the Bail Fund, and--despite my displeasure regarding 'Diversity of Tactics'--advocated for OO to anyone who'll listen.

But I have never attended an Occupy Oakland GA in person (though I've watched a ton via Livestream). Here are ten reasons why, in no particular order.

1. I've never been a member of any political organisation. I'm deeply uncomfortable with the concept of joining anything, even when there are no membership applications or dues involved. During the Thatcher era I thought about joining the Labour Party long distance from Oakland, but considering how things developed with Tony Blair I'm extremely glad I didn't. I just don't join things--the risk of betrayal and/or disappointment is too high.

2. Whatever I do in life, I am generally all in or not in at all. When I commit to something, my commitment is serious. I am clinically obsessive-compulsive and find it hard to walk a middle path, but that's what I've managed to do (so far) with OO. If I start going to GAs, I would feel the need to go to every GA and would feel horribly guilty every time I missed one.

3. I have a spouse who thinks I'm a bit of a loony for supporting OO. We've been married for 27 years and I'm not keen on getting a divorce.

4. I have a full-time job. Jobs take up a lot of time.

5. I have writing gigs and other outside commitments. These also take up a lot of time.

6. The hand signals creep me out. Especially the twinkles.

7. The human mic creeps me out. I don't like mindless recitation of anything.

8. I am a white middle-aged male socialist. You don't want/need any more of those at GA, do you?

9. I don't want to get shouted at by anti-non-violence advocates and I don't want to be tempted to shout at anyone, especially that guy who called Gandhi 'a misogynist prick'.

10. I don't like inhaling second hand smoke (of any variety).

11. BONUS REASON: I understand how things work in subcultures. If you weren't there at the start, you weren't there at all, and if you join now you're a poseur. Contrary to Poly Styrene, I am not a poseur, I do care, and I don't like to make people stare.

Are these legit reasons, poor excuses, or embarrassing cop-outs? You tell me!

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.

Good thoughts for J28

It goes without saying that tomorrow will be a big day. Move-In Day promises to be the most significant Occupy Oakland action since the 12/12 port shutdown.

If I were a believer, I'd be praying that OPD take the day off, let the 1:00 PM march go forward, and let the building occupation proceed peacefully.

As I'm not, however, I'm instead going to hope that someone in a position of authority realizes that the building occupation presents the City of Oakland with a golden opportunity to finally get OO away from Ogawa-Grant Plaza. However, as the decision-maker is likely to be Deanna Santana--or as I prefer to call her, Li'l Ms. Quarter Million Bucks Per Annum--I'm not really expecting that to happen, either.

So what will transpire? A lot depends, of course, on the building that is being occupied. Hopefully the organizing committee has done its homework and found a building with a legal status unclear enough to render immediate police action impossible or unlikely, or they've found a building owner willing to host OO.

You may call me a dreamer (though I'm probably not the only one), but I'm imagining how wonderful it would be for Occupy Oakland to finally have somewhere to call home: somewhere people could point to and say, 'look...there really is a there, there! No really, there, on the corner!' Somewhere where city residents and Occupiers could gather to organize and help each other--and somewhere where those of us averse to 'outdoor life' could get more deeply involved in the betterment of our city (which, surprisingly, most of us don't want to destroy. Shocking, I know!).


I haven't attended many OO events, but I'm coming to this one. See you there.

Camp Care-a-Lot

In one of the most significant developments in the ongoing struggle between the City of Oakland and the Occupy movement, a group of celebrities showed up at Ogawa-Grant Plaza this morning to endorse the Interfaith Vigil and the Tactical Action Committee.


Yes, Cheer Bear, Funshine Bear, and--most critically--Love A Lot Bear are now camping out at Ogawa-Grant Plaza.

Reports that Mayor Quan and Darth Santana have been in contact with Professor Coldheart and Frostbite would not be confirmed this afternoon by City Hall, which closed early due to the elevated threat of pastoral action.

Garbage cans of doom

Our illustrious chief of police, Howard Jordan, today complained that Occupy Oakland is causing a trash problem in Ogawa-Grant Plaza.

According to the City's press release revoking the vigil permit (and it's disgusting in itself that the use of public space can be subject to 'permits'), "individuals associated with the permitted activities are sleeping and lodging around the teepee and table, food is being distributed without the necessary health permits, garbage cans have been erected, and the area is being used as long-term personal storage (tables, chairs, mats, tarps, bedrolls, sleeping bags, food, coolers, etc.)."

Now how does this jibe with the city's (and the mainstream media's) depiction of occupiers as naught but smelly hippies? Why on Earth would a group of pot-smoking, patchouli-drenched, upper-middle class trustafarians ERECT GARBAGE CANS?



Hmm. No trash receptacles in THIS picture. Perhaps Jordan mistook Occupy Oakland's giant bongs for garbage cans?

Once again, the mind reels.

Occupy Pickled Bologna!

It's been almost a year since I last posted on Pickled Bologna. (To my one follower, I apologize!) I've spent most of the interim writing elsewhere about film, but in the last few months I've become deeply interested in the development of the Occupy movement, the most important social movement the first world has seen in decades. I've wanted to get involved, but as I don't use Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking sites or tools, I've decided to reactivate PB as an Occupy-friendly blog. Who knows--perhaps someone will actually read it now!

To clarify: I'm not a camper, I'm not a hippie, I'm not a pot-smoker, and I've never relied on government assistance in my life. I'm a white, middle-class, middle-aged guy with a job and a family. I've lived in Oakland, California for thirty years and support and endorse the 24-hour a day, 365 days a year occupation of our public space. We've allowed the definition of 'public space' to be so narrowed over the years that the very concept now barely exists (e.g., Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza/Brookfield). It's time to change that.

I was appalled when the Oakland Police Department cleared the Occupy Oakland camp from Ogawa-Grant Plaza on October 25th. Though Jean Quan was conveniently out of town that day--the day that her future in politics effectively came to an end-- City Administrator Deanna Santana was in the office, and Haig be praised, she was in charge. Once in the saddle, Santana (who'd once worked for OPD) eagerly ordered the police to take the gloves off.

We all know what happened next, but so far our esteemed City Administrator has managed to avoid most of the blame for the near murder of protester Scott Olsen and the brutalization of scores of others. Though Mayor Quan has proven herself an inept administrator in thrall to the Chamber of Commerce, it's my belief that Santana is the real power behind the throne, the true villain of the piece, and the driving force behind our ostensibly 'progressive' city's response to Occupy.

My politics, once shockingly mainstream, had been moving to the left ever since 9/11. The election of Obama and his subsequent failure to even pretend to be interested in issues of social and economic justice and civil liberties moved me further down the road. Santana's decision to attack peaceful protesters was the Eureka moment when it finally dawned on me that 'progressive/liberal' Democratic politicians have been feeding us a line for decades. Call me dim, but it's taken me this long to realize that all they're interested in is the perquisites and exercise of power. In fact, they're just like right-wing Republican ideologues, only less effective.

So here we are at the end of 2011. As I'm typing this, OPD is breaking up another Occupy Oakland encampment--this time on an enclosed piece of property so valueless that it's purported owners (Lafayette resident and Ross Dress for Less exec [1% represent!] Mehrdad Dokhanchy, Brian Collins, and Edward Hermmat) DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO PUT A LOCK ON THE GATE. And yet, once a group of activists and homeless people erected a few tents on the other side of that gate, this empty lot suddenly and magically acquired tremendous value--so much, in fact, that the foot soldiers of capitalism (er, OPD) were once again called upon to reclaim it for its slumlord masters, who presumably use it as a tax write-off.

I will have much, much more to say about the Occupy movement in the coming days. In the meantime, Occupy Everything!