Occupy Oakland called for a general strike — the city grinding to a halt, banks unattended, and schools closed. What they got was a few thousand protesters vandalizing banks and briefly closing a unionized port, but more important, a mayor happy to facilitate it all. Wednesday night would have been no more disturbing than a vigorous though destructive demonstration by the lefties of the Occupy movement — except that it occurred with the endorsement of Oakland’s mayor, Jean Quan.
The problems began last week when Oakland police cleared the illegal tent city in Frank Ogawa Plaza, responding to claims of sexual assault, vandalism, and other crimes. Clashes broke out between protesters and police, in which one man was accidentally seriously injured. The next day, much to the justified confusion and anger of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, the protesters were allowed to return and continue their blatantly unpermitted occupation of the park — where Mayor Quan promised they could stay until they wanted to meet with her (they haven’t).
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As if to make up for having offended her fellow activists-cum-politicians, Quan began to express her support for the movement’s “general strike” this Wednesday. She informed city employees, with the exception of the police, that they would be allowed to take the day off in order to participate in the strike, but few did — 360 workers from the 2,000-strong Oakland Unified School District, for instance. Even with all the abetting the city government could afford, only 18 percent of one of the strongest progressive groups in America, unionized teachers, joined the strike.
Despite her words, Quan attempted to maintain some sense of propriety and responsibility by requiring that all police officers show up to work and ordering extra police into the streets. It appears, however, that she significantly hindered their ability to protect citizens and private property. At 11:55 p.m. Wednesday night, police reported that “the protesters began hurling rocks, explosives, bottles, and flaming objects at responding officers.” The mayor responded with an almost unbelievable tweet at 1:00 a.m.: “OPD has not taken action. Smoke is from burning barricade. I’ll say it again, protestors need to call now” (having provided her office phone number earlier in the evening).
Although the exact events of the evening remain murky (my requests for explanation from the mayor’s office were not answered), this much is clear: While protesters were committing widespread acts of arson and violence, she felt the need to offer free consultation to the perpetrators and clarify that the police were doing nothing to stop them.
Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the California Republican party, noted to National Review Online that he is hardly surprised; Quan was “really always more of an activist than a mayor.” There are obvious parallels to our current president, who has also expressed some support for the Occupy movement. The comparison stops there, however: Quan’s position demands a practical and serious response to a movement that endangers her citizens, and she has offered inane yet maleficent ideological encouragement instead.
This is not Quan’s first dereliction of her first duty, protecting the citizens of Oakland: Police chief Anthony Batts resigned two weeks ago, citing the impossibility of reform and effective law enforcement in a suffocating city bureaucracy. Del Beccaro explained that it was widely perceived that the mayor had “pushed him out because he got tough on crime.” In doing so, she showed shades of the liberal orthodoxy that has made her so ineffective in confronting this week’s events: ideological solidarity overruling practical concerns.
The Occupy Movement (CoffeePartyUSA.com, too) is the inflammatory response to decay in the US body. (An analogy from biology class.) It is very aggressive, and will make structural changes to effect healing. Come join us as we force the establishment to change the rules so little people like us can have a vote that means more than the lobbyist's money.
Could you imagine if these mobs of leftists had instead been organized rallies of tea partiers? The Mayor (and media) would have been swift in her eviction and criticism.
Mr. Brennen, jnro, and Y Snachez --
This article is a grade A example of inflammatory insinuations, hostile adjectives, and fabricated pejoratives. A few examples, in order of appearance:
1. A few attendees got violent. If you interview the founders and great majority of Occupiers, they would rather follow non-violence (Gandhi, King).
2. Occupy is not a "lefties" movement. They are trying to make enough noise to persuade the upper income part of society to take big left and big right money out of politics so individual votes can count, again. That won't happen without massive and big demonstrations. Occupiers don't want violence. Conquering a bombed city, for an illustration, is to win a dysfunctional mess.
3. Quan recognizes the sincere desire of the Occupiers to be non-violent, so let them re-occupy the park.
4. 18% participation by unionized school district workers is a big number when it was purely voluntary, without any union prompting. And they lost a day's pay.
5. Any "acts of violence and arson" are deplorable. But I think calling it "widespread" may be an exaggeration.
6. Quan has not offered "maleficent ideological encouragement" to a violent action. She (but not you, yet) understands that the structural change that the Occupiers want is going to be drastic and difficult. It will require that the movement have strength in numbers, without violence.
7. Quan "showed shades of the liberal orthodoxy that has made her so ineffective...." Where did you get that? Since when are "liberal" and "orthodoxy" bad words? And whatever is "liberal orthodoxy"?
8. Oakland is "afflicted with 15% unemployment, dysfunctional and corrupt government, and appalling rates of crime." Do you not understand that is what the Occupiers are protesting? Get big money out of politics, and let legislators act for the benefit of the people, not the monied few. That will improve employment, reduce corruption, and reduce crime. Really.
9. You say Quan "instigated" the mess. Did she carry the first protest sign into the park?
10. Whole Foods is not a "leftist" grocery store. They have market niche for anyone who wants to consume foods with fewer corporate chemicals.
11. Perhaps Quan is "facilitating civil unrest" because she wants the impact to be moderated.
--- You prejudice is blatantly exposed in your article, and offensive to people who look for facts in journalism. ---
Sometimes I wonder if people on the left have forgotten that there's a subset of journalism called opinion journalism. Examples of opinion journalism include The New Republic, National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Atlantic.
This is one of the problems with the creeping bias that has infected hard journalism in the many papers and "news" magazines that actual opinion journalism is mistaken for somehow biased straight reporting.
You'll just have to excuse us, RC, who do not share your vision (or delusion) of what is and isn't taking place in Oakland.
Your opinion is not backed up by the facts nor based in reality.
You are a fraud and a liar. I have lived in the bay area, and still live in Sacramento and been to Oakland hundreds of times. Small group? On a DAILY basis the city is a haven for some of the worst thugs criminals, drug dealers/users, violent gangs, lefties, violent ones at that, and one on the biggest factions of American hating anti-white racist in the country. I KNOW of which facts I speak of. Obviously you do not.
"10. Whole Foods is not a "leftist" grocery store. They have market niche for anyone who wants to consume foods with fewer corporate chemicals."
Got to acknowledge that as true, except for "corporate chemicals." Does that mean all chemicals are OK, as long as they were brewed by private individuals? Just askin'....
Seriously, some of y'all might remember the trouble Whole Foods' CEO got into with the Left during the Obamacare fiasco, when he publicly described a sensible company health care policy that focused on rewarding people for hitting personal health numbers.
When 80% of costs stem from 4-5 chronic conditions that are heavily preventable, it was a rare outbreak of sanity,
The law abiding people of Oakland will get what they seemingly wanted, having voted for lunatic-leftists as leaders - a city up in flames at the hand of local anarchists. There's a coarse old saying amongst campers & Boy Scouts: don't sh-- where you eat. Destroying your own city would seem to qualify. Guess the anarchist-left of Oakland never heard that one.
Quan provides yet another example of why the left is truly evil. They are so wedded to their theoretical narratives, that they do not care about the safety, integrity, and sanctity of real individuals. Their value system of equality above all, precludes them from protecting human life and thus allowing people to live without fear. No longer can we assume a baseline governance that until now was always taken for granted as being the most essential reason for establishing government in the first place.
With leftists in control of the benevolent all-powerful State, the rest of us are required to become sacrificial offerings, forced against our will to participate. Thus your business will be subject to robbery by flash mobs of 'authentic youths'. Your children will be subject to beatings or rape because of 'unfortunate random incidents'. Your neighborhood will be subject to gang violence by 'undocumented aliens'. The examples are endless at all levels of society, including what used to be national defense. Do you doubt at all that liberalism/progressivism/leftism is a suicide cult?
If you don't think we should all have access to minimal care, you are not evil. If you think everyone of your neighbors should have access to health care, you can delegate it to our societies lead organizer, the government. You are thoughtful. You may not agree with the significance of having healthy neighbors, but you are like me. You have a right to your own conclusions.
Your rant labels everyone else as evil. You are entitled. But don't expect everyone else to agree. And, maybe, they are just as smart as you.
Your contrived moral equivalence displays the depth of your moral bankruptcy. The only morality you progressives know is the simple-minded siren song of equality. However, this is by no means morality, it is sheer moral laziness masquerading as virtue.
True charity is personal, not collective. Personal morality is hard, which progressives don't want to consider. Instead, they want the easy way out, by adopting the pretense of morality, a lazy vicarious excuse for morality. Progressives want to feel good while letting the State enforce their collective morality for them.
Progressives are nothing but morality mast#rbators.
Yes, I doubt that liberalism is a suicide cult. We have a debt from doing as the Republicans wanted for 8 years. Now they refuse to increase taxes by one dollar. Is that a suicide wish?
Complete non-sequitur that does not even attempt to address the argument. First, liberal suicide is suicide regardless of what the Republicans have done. Second, the distinction is not between liberals and Republicans, but between liberals and conservatives. Third, how can you blame even Republicans for a debt that has spiraled out of control under Obama, and which NO amount of additional taxes can solve? Fourth, Fannie and Freddie et al were not the creation either of conservatives or Republicans -- they were exclusively the child of the left and its Democrat enablers, Dodd-Frank and their band of merry do-gooders.
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