January 18, 2012 Update On The Occupy Oakland Protests
59The Occupy Oakland General Assembly
Yes there is some form of organization to these occupation protests. But there is a more sinister form of organization going on. This update to the Occupy Oakland protests will reveal a form of organization seems to be a collaboration between more advanced organizations and local governments.
Perception management seems to be the next of Sun Tsu's "Death Walls" that the occupation protesters find themselves up against. Accusations of irrelevance, police moral superiority, soothing crap. You name it, and it is being used to back the protesters up against walls that do not exist in realty. These walls are in the mind.
Daily Kos has an article on how the Police Chief tells lies to manage the public perceptions. These days, lying to manage the public perceptions is something that the fine, fine experts at Homeland Security must be helping with, because the methods are too sophisticated for the local yokels to be coming up with on their own.
Here is a memo that local television station KTVU obtained through a public records request:
When Police Chief Howard Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan's advisers.
"Not sure how you want to share this good news," he wrote. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland."
The second lie was that downtown Oakland businesses were suffering losses due to the occupation protests.
Raggedy assed downtown Oakland was more than happy to feed the protesters, news hounds, visitors, the curious, the happy and the hungry during a more active and populated period than would ever show up on an average day.
The third lie involved the teargassing incident that left decorated veteran Scott Walker in a permanent state of disability that two combat tours could not give him.
The Daily Kos cites Brad Blog
Oct. 25 televised press conference that law enforcement "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks...
"In response to questions emailed by The BRAD BLOG to the Oakland PD's Chief of Staff, Sgt. Chris Bolton conceded that the department was unable, at this time, to substantiate claims made by Jordan that gas was deployed in order to protect law enforcement personnel from violent demonstrators, despite the Chief's unqualified claim that evening that "the deployment of gas was necessary to protect our officers and protect property around the area and to protect injuries to others as well."
It is worth a trip over to Brad Blog and to the Daily Kos in order to read the deeper details of this disgraceful mess.
It must be noted that Chief Jordan found himself in his position after the sudden resignation of his predecessor, Chief Anthony Batts. Both chiefs and the mayor found themselves in a convoluted leadership vacuum that involved a new Mayor who was under attack by her own police department.
Let's not go into the composition and past problems of the OPD right now. Suffice it to say that this is not a time where the words "ongoing leadership vacuum" would be an exaggeration.
Mayor Quan Still Getting Booed Off Stage
Mayor Jean Quan is the poster child for what is called "ranked choice voting". This style of election vote processing is so convoluted that it takes an entire volume of articles to explain it.
This article gives some of the basics about ranked choice voting, but be warned, the subject is one complicated bit of business.
The short story is that Mayor Quan was not really the voter's choice until the other candidates proved to be unable to get past the chaos of ranked choice voting.
The Examiner also had a good article about Oakland's disaster of ranked choice voting.
It will take 20,000 signatures by the end of May 2012 to recall the mayor, according to ABC News. What are the odds that spring occupation revivals and frisky weather will bring out the angry voters who simply are unhappy enough to get rid of their ranked choice voting mayor?
The Oakland Police Department (OPD)
The OPD has had a long history of police malfeasance. But to add insult to injury, Police Chief Anthony Batts just resigned on October 11, 2011. According to the local NBC News affiliate, Batt wrote two resignation letters, one to his employers and one to the people of Oakland.
His main complaint was about having 100 percent of the accountability but only 20 percent of the control. He also cited many other issues that were making the job untenable.
Howard Jordan is the interim OPD chief and was in charge when the police actions were taken. The LA Times reports that Chief Jordan is working with Mayor Jean Quan to carry out an investigation into all claims of excessive force as well as injuries to Scott Olsen.
In other developments, it appears that several jurisdictions lent police and law enforcement forces that were operating on the night of Scott Olsen's injury. Chief Jordan insists, for example, that OPD does not use rubber bullets, but that an assisting department may have used them. He also states that teargas canisters are not launched by OPD.
This indicates that there was not a lot of coordination between OPD and incoming law enforcement from other cities and counties.
The above OPD link and the NBC link have links to a statement from Chief Jordan and Chief Batt's letter to the community.
As a result, a fuller picture will be available to those who review the recent turmoil and changes in command, problems with leading the department, problems with coordinating with outside police forces, and a host of other issues were involved with the rising tensions between the police, the Mayor, the community, and the Occupy Oakland protesters.
In this update of January 18, 2012, a court appointed group of monitors did not have good news to give. Here is the report at The Bay Citizen.
CommentsLoading...
Larry, what is it you want the tea party to do to fix things, I see them as the problem.
I have some control over elected representatives in Washington, the private market (Wall Street) need not show any retraint to their behavior.
How I see it, Obama is a part of the extremist left, & the people he puts in various offices are going to support his agenda. Including giving billions to private companies from our tax dollars. But to answer xenonlit for a second, there are racist bigots running around in both ows & tea party rallies, they do not represent either movement, but are pushing their own agendas. Credence, the difference I see is that OWS places all the blame on WS & TP places it all on DC. In reality DC & WS are in bed together & if TP & OWS would work together to end the corruption it would be a force to reckon with. Unfortunately, most of the TP is not radical enough to do what needs to be done to bring about the necessary changes.For this I am sad.
REally. A lot of us are beginning to see them as traitors and need to call them on their pledges. Those pledges are NOT to our flag or country, but to some anti American and racist nonsense.
Xenondit, sound a great deal like a contradiction in terms.... There is no mistaking who it is the Tea Party caters to, just look at all the obstructionists in the House.
I saw someone on TV today who had given himself the title of "Tea Party Patriot". Sick sick sick.
Larry, also, I need to make the point, which side has stood firm against the President's attempt to rein in Wall Street and it excesses and who has spent so much political capital trying to water it down, it certainly has not been the left, nor Democrats, generally has it?
Larry, I see your point that this may be a much more general protest not directed at any specific party. But who has been heard to dismiss the group as so much rabble frequently, Cantor and a couple of the GOP candidates for President. Anytime we question Wall Street, the manipulative financial markets it represents, which party or ideological base more quickly comes to its defense?I want their aspiration to translate to political action, which group do you think they are going to have a better chance of influencing? Yes, the 99% would have to include many GOP and conservative leaning people, but those that control the GOP and have an unshakable stake in the status quo are going to prove more resistant to the goals and aspirations of this movement, is this not so?
In response to the comment by Credence2, I do not find your statement to be accurate at all. When you speak of the 99% who are not the elite, alot of Right Wing or Republicans are also included in this number. I have found it very disheartening that a few left-wingers such as yourself have hijacked this movement, that is suppose to be a peoples movement. In past years I traditionally aligned myself with the Republicans, however, the truth is that both parties are jacked up. Quit trying to hijack the peoples movement for the DNC. Now if you changed your statement to say, "the elite.....", then I might just agree with you.
Credence, the power is with the people. The fact that the Oakland protesters were peaceful and were not doing battle will give a permanent message that the rogues and rioters were really the cops.
But I am with you. We think that a few provocateurs could cause riots. But the protest organizers and protesters are pretty savvy these days, and have plans for troublemakers. Some out of control people have already been ejected and not allowed back in.
I am most afraid, Xenonlit, that if these activities seem to get out of hand, it will be used by the Right to cast a negative image over the entire movement. They are afraid of the potential political power tied up in what appears to be just mob at the present. We need to continue to them a real fear that the demands being made by the group are addressed, so that all of these efforts have some meaning. Rightwingers are all to happy to dismiss the movement as a mob. I see the protests as sending a message to those responsible for the primary grievance of the protesters. To do that we must all be organized and disciplined to have that message picked up by sympathetic legislators who in turn are in a position to make desired changes a reality.
Thanks,all! The only way that we are going to know about any of the occupation protests is when the local news and the citizen journalists publish their photos, hubs, and blogs.
Cheers to citizen journalism!
Very interesting hub. It's good to know what's going on in cities other than NY. Here in Russia we don't get much news that are not Russia-centred.
Read with interest. We have demonstrations all over Europe at the time: they will do no damn good at all. the only thing a rabid swine understands is violence: cobblestones and machettes. Peaceful demonstrations just aid those being demonstrated against by partially defusing the situation but changing nothing...Bob
Great reporting, thanks. Thanks also for visiting my Occupy Wall Street article, and your encouragement. I will start on another article. Those of us that cannot participate in the actual occupation, can do our part in other ways. My husband lost his job this last week, after working in the same place for over 16 years. He just turned 66 this last May. I lost my job some time ago. So, all we have to live on is his social security. We'd be fine, except for the house payment, as we have not been able to sell our house - it's been on the market for 2 years. Today, we are okay. That's all I'm going to focus on for now.
Thanks, brages and bloggerbarb. The real news is out there, but we have to go to the local news which is doing much more coverage. The cable and national news looks for drama that does not unfold every day.
Thank you for the updates. I will use the website to get info as we don't hear much about Oakland [in MA] unless there is definite violence.
Glad to hear that Corporal Olsen is doing as best as can be expected and not needing surgery at this time.
Great hub. Sadly, Oakland was the story of the Bonus Marchers and the story of the first unions all over again.
Xenonlit Hub Author 6 months ago
I want to know how a fake grassroots movement that was paid for by the Koch Bros is getting any attention....but wait...they're not getting much attention now, that is.