Occupy Oakland - Two Different Views; Rebirth or Self-
Destruction; Are We Being Childish? (long)

* Occupy Oakland at a Crossroads: Rebirth or Self-
  Destruction? (Josh Healey in The Progressive)
* Occupy Oakland: Are We Being Childish? (Osha Neumann in
  The Berkeley Daily Planet)

=====

Occupy Oakland at a Crossroads: Rebirth or Self-Destruction?

by Josh Healey

The Progressive

February 1, 2012

http://progressive.org/constructive_criticism_occupy_oakland.html

Over the last few months, I have been an active, critical,
yet ultimately proud member of Occupy Oakland. Despite the
sometimes-questionable tactics and lack of much diversity in
this working-class, multi-racial city, I believed that
Occupy Oakland was still a young movement and would mature
into a more solid political force. Sadly, it seems, we still
have a long way to go.

On January 28, Occupy Oakland's attempt to take over an
unused public building turned into yet another painful,
predictable street battle with the Oakland Police Department
(OPD), with over 400 people arrested by night's end. The
police's actions were more brutal than ever, from the tear
gas and sound grenades to the unlawful mass arrest that has
left many of my comrades still in jail as I write this. I
stand unequivocally against the severe repression and the
increasing police state that we find ourselves in. To my
fellow Occupiers, though, it is time that we critically
examine our own tactics. If we don't, Occupy Oakland is
going to fizzle out quicker than Rick Perry's presidential
campaign.

The events in Oakland on January 28 indeed occupied national
headlines and local jail cells, but they almost certainly
lost more supporters to the movement than they gained.
Needlessly picking fights with the cops, vandalizing City
Hall, and putting our own people in harm's way is not the
path to social and economic justice. It is a losing,
incoherent strategy, one that will continue to damage the
public's support for Occupy until our claim that "We are the
99%" becomes a bad joke. Forget whether folks can survive
endless police confrontations and court dates. The question
now is: Can Occupy Oakland survive itself?

January 28: Great Politics, Terrible Strategy

On paper, the plan sounded simple. Occupy Oakland was going
to "occupy a large, vacant building and convert it into a
social center." This center would then be used for both
political organizing as well as providing the free food,
medical care, and other services that the movement did so
admirably in its encampment days. As a matter of political
principle, occupying an unused building makes sense: while
over 3.5 million Americans were homeless at some point last
year, over 18.5 million vacant/foreclosed homes sat empty.

The problem on January 28 was not the general principles,
but the very real issues of goals, strategy, and tactics.
Given OPD's aggressive history, I was skeptical of our
ability to take and hold any building for any serious length
of time. I was angry at the pre-action press conference
where the event spokesperson made empty, impossible threats
to "shut down the airport" if the city did not give in to
our demands. And I was worried that most people in Oakland
would see this as yet another Occupy action whose message
was nothing more than "Fuck the Police." Despite these
fears, I made my way to the protest, hoping against hope to
be proven wrong.

I joined the crowd of over 1,000 people around noon at
Occupy Oakland's regular meeting place, Oscar Grant/Frank
Ogawa Plaza in front of city hall. We soon began marching,
and thus began the first problem of the day -- 99% of the
people in the crowd (yes, our 99%) had no idea where we
marching to. The organizers for the action had kept the
exact building they planned to take over a secret in hopes
of outsmarting the cops. What that meant, of course, was
that the cops knew exactly where we were heading.
(Undercover agents are a cop's best friend.) So when we
finally arrived at the intended target, the massive Kaiser
Auditorium, it was surrounded on all sides by cops in riot
gear. As many of us expected, it was clear that we had no
hope of taking the actual building. What happened next,
however, turned a small setback into a major, self-inflicted
blow to the movement.

Battling the Cops: Really? This is How We're Going to Change
America?

I do not know who threw the first projectile - whether it
was a policeman's sound grenade or a protester's glass
bottle - but honestly it does not matter. I mean, it matters
in a legal setting, and the cops' actions were brutally
violent and entirely unconstitutional. But we already know
that, folks! This is the Oakland Police Department we're
talking about. Even CNN knows that they are vicious and
corrupt. So why are we provoking them? Why are people
leading our march with "battle shields" and charging at
their fortified lines that we have no possibility of
breaking through?

After the initial standoff outside the auditorium, activists
retreated back to Oscar Grant Plaza. Action leaders
announced their intentions to march on a second, again
undisclosed, building. By this time it was getting dark out,
and anyone who has been around Oakland protests in the last
few years knows that things get ugly when the sun goes down.
And so they did. The remaining protesters marched through
downtown, until the police surrounded them on all sides near
the local YMCA. In true Orwellian fashion, the cops refused
to allow people to leave the area and then arrested over 300
of them for "failure to disperse." Meanwhile, another small
group of protesters somehow got into City Hall, where they
proceeded to vandalize offices, break windows, and of course
burn an American flag in front of all the waiting cameras.

Four days later, Occupy Oakland is in turmoil. Denounced
this time not only by the city but many allies and Occupy
participants themselves, the January 28 action has only
further divided the already-tenuous movement in the Bay Area
and around the country. Wall Street and the 1% don't need to
worry about shutting us down -- we're doing it to ourselves.
Or more accurately, a small group of fringe Occupy activists
is doing it to the rest of us.

Calling out the So-Called Radicals

Occupy Oakland likes to think of itself as the radical wing
of the Occupy movement. Indeed, the Oakland general strike
of 40,000 people on November 2, as well as the Oakland-
initiated West Coast port shutdown of December 12, were
bold, courageous actions that inspired people across the
country and the world. On a smaller scale, there is
powerful, grassroots work being down every day: shout-out to
Occupy the Hood, the Labor Solidarity committee, Occupy
Research, and others. But there is a small, vocal element in
the movement that is more interested in playing (and losing)
cat-and-mouse games with the OPD -- and this element is
destroying our popular base before we have even really built
it.

The word "radical" means getting to the roots of the
problem. I'm talking about the runaway capitalism,
institutionalized racism, and imperialist war that
dehumanize the 99% of people inside and especially outside
our borders. Yes, the police are the private army of the 1%,
but we will never defeat them at their game. Black bloc
anarchists "playing revolution" in the streets cannot
replace the hard but necessary day-to-day organizing that
makes real change possible.

Contrast the January 28 debacle in Oakland with the
powerful, movement-building Occupy San Francisco action
across the bay just one week earlier. On January 20, Occupy
San Francisco nonviolently shut down major banks and
corporate headquarters. This is what "Occupy Wall Street" is
all about, right? Protesters chained themselves to the Wells
Fargo headquarters, turned one bank branch into a "People's
Food Bank of America," and made a coherent message of people
over profits. The San Francisco protest was definitely a
militant direct action, but it was totally nonviolent.
Perhaps most significant, over 50 community organizations
(including labor unions, student groups, and immigrant
associations) formally participated in the San Francisco
action, coordinating with each other in one of the most
strategic Occupy events I've seen.

Occupy Oakland had that type of broad-based unity back
during the November 2 general strike. This past Saturday,
however, I did not see a single union sign or student
banner. We are losing our legitimacy, our numbers, and our
energy. I know of two actions being planned this month
around crucial community issues, school closures and city
worker layoffs where activists had forged a coalition with
Occupy to fight together. Both these coalitions are now in
doubt, as many community members want nothing to do with the
name Occupy. When it comes to fake revolutionaries versus
actual community leaders, which side are we on?

What Next? A Call for Honesty and Tough Love

One of my main struggles with the Occupy movement is our
failure to engage in real self-reflection. Part of this is
understandable -- we are under so much heat from the police
and the media, we want to maintain a united front. That
front here in Oakland, though, is disuniting very quickly.
Now is the time where we need to be brutally honest with
ourselves. Who is Occupy Oakland -- and who is it not (yet)?
What can we really achieve -- and what can we not (yet)? And
yes, what the hell are our damn goals? These are tough
questions that go beyond any one action's tactics, but go to
the core of race and class, power and protest, integrity and
strength.

This is hard work, and it will take time. It might mean that
we won't be able to have actions every week, but that can be
a good thing. Let is be humble about our youth, and reach
out to those in our community who have been in the struggle
for a long time. One downfall so far has been that many
established organizers - the very people this movement needs
for guidance and support - have been turned away by the
arrogant rhetoric and juvenile tactics of Occupy's vocal
minority.

Movement education, of course, is a two-way street, and
Occupy has shown it has much to teach long-time activists as
well. Right now, though, we have a lot to learn. Here in
Oakland, we're fortunate to have great folks who could help
us out: the Movement Strategy Center, Ruckus Society, Center
for Third World Organizing, amongst others. Are we willing
to humble ourselves and say, "Hey guys...a little help?"

At the end of the day, if Occupy Oakland and the broader OWS
movement are really in this for the long haul, we need to
practice some tough love. If we can stand with each other in
the struggle, then we must also be open for self-reflection
and honest critique. Occupy has opened the door for all
sorts of progressive possibilities, but here in Oakland, we
are letting a few foolish agitators hold us back in the
doorway. If we don't change that up soon, the only thing
Occupy Oakland will be occupying is its own coffin.

[Josh Healey is an innovative writer, community organizer,
educator, and comedic powerhouse whose work incites your
political imagination and attacks your funny bone without
mercy. Writing and fighting in the traditions of Amiri
Baraka, Emma Goldman, and Aziz Ansari, he is the author of
Hammertime (OMAI/First Wave Press).

Born and raised in Washington, DC, Healey has performed and
led artistic and activist workshops at universities, high
schools, and conferences across the country. He is the co-
founder of the First Wave program at the University of
Wisconsin, the first college hip-hop arts program in the
nation.

Speaking truth to power while stirring up riots of
uncontrollable joy, Healey has been featured in the New York
Times, NPR, and Al-Jazeera. Recently, he has shared his work
at UC-Berkeley, Harvard, the National Poetry Slam, the
Wisconsin Book Festival, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the
Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the Arab Cultural Center.

Healey currently lives in Oakland, CA and works with Youth
Speaks to empower young artists and activists across the Bay
Area and beyond.]

==========

Occupy Oakland: Are We Being Childish?

by Osha Neumann

The Berkeley Daily Planet

January 31, 2012

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2012-01-30/article/39233

"The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using Oakland
as their playground," said Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, speaking
at a press conference Saturday evening after a day of
demonstrations called by Occupy Oakland that saw
approximately 400 arrests, multiple injuries, and numerous
confrontations with police. She ticked off the damage that
had been done when a group of protesters broke into City
Hall, overturning a scale model of the building, vandalizing
a children's art exhibit, and burning an American flag. The
next day in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle,
she returned to her talking point: "It's like a tantrum . .
. They're treating us like a playground."

For the first time since October when the Oakland police
violently evicted the occupation from Frank Ogawa Plaza
after renaming it in honor of Oscar Grant, Mayor Quan, her
protesting days behind her, looked genuinely comfortable in
the role of champion of law and order. It was as if by
trashing City Hall, Occupy had done her a favor. She was the
adult, genuinely concerned with the well-being of the city.
We were children, playing childish games, oblivious to the
serious real-world consequences of our actions.

Occupy's response to the mayor's scolding was predictable.
On KPFA the next day, Marie, speaking as a representative of
the movement, was unapologetic. "The war in the streets is a
visible manifestation of the invisible war on the poor . . .
the violence of the capitalist system." In a statement put
out by the Occupy Oakland media committee, Cathy Jones, an
attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, is quoted as
saying: "Never have I felt so helpless and enraged as I do
tonight. These kids are heroes, and the rest of the country
needs to open its collective eyes and grab what remains of
its civil rights, because they are evaporating, quickly."
She agrees with Mayor Quan that those of us who were in the
forefront in the confronting the police were "kids," but for
her they were "heroic." For Mayor Quan they were just
bratty.

Power always represents itself as adult, rationale and in
control. The socially sanctioned definition of what it is to
be adult includes the ability to be compliant with the self-
repression required of an obedient and productive member of
society. Since those of us in opposition have no desire to
be obedient and less to be productive cogs in the machine,
it's no wonder we fall into the role of defiant children.

It may be inevitable that in the confrontation between
radical movements and the systems they oppose there are
echoes of the conflict between child and adult. We who march
in the streets in defiance of the orders of the police have
legitimate reason to rage against the system. It in no way
negates the legitimacy of that rage to say that it may also
have an "infantile" component.

Occupy is not a monolith. On Saturday within the motley of
demonstrators one group stood out. They were the "kids" with
the black bandannas and hoodies. Some carried makeshift
shields constructed from segments of plastic trash cans
painted black with peace signs spray-painted in white on the
front. Some carried impressive movable barricades composed
of rectangular sheets of strong corrugated steel, screwed to
wooden frames to which handles had been attached so that
three or four people could hunker behind them and push them
into lines of police. It was this group that was in the
forefront in the attempt to pull down the chain-link fence
around the Kaiser Convention Center. A takeover of that
center had been announced as the goal of the demonstration.
Thwarted in that effort, the group got into a confrontation
with a line of police blocking Oak Street south of the
intersection with 12th. This black block of anarchist youth
tends to identify with insurrectionist anarchism. They are
our militants who will be the first to challenge the police,
and who proudly proclaim their disrespect for property
rights. I imagine that for them the rest of us appear as
somewhat compromised and a bit timid, for we are unwilling
to go as far as they in our commitment to the revolution.
Here something of the dynamic between child and adult
reemerges as a political division within the movement. We
who do not come to demonstrations dressed in black become
the model of a not quite legitimate "maturity;" the purest
revolutionary energies are represented by those who reject
this maturity, as a fraud -- the heroic kids.

Jean Quan's insinuates that we act like children. I say
"we", old as I am, because the black bloc is part of us, we
cannot disown them. Infuriating as her charge may be, I
think it contains something worth looking at. Her version of
being grown-up is compromised. If to be a grownup means to
live forever within the confines of the system, let us all
be Peter Pans. But in our righteous rejection of her version
of adulthood there lies a danger. The danger is that without
being aware of it, we are unable truly to imagine winning;
that we remain heroic "kids," endlessly reenacting a drama
in which we are abused by the authorities. (It might be
worthwhile looking at whether we get a masochistic pleasure
in being fucked over by them.)

At 7:37 PM on Saturday, I was relaxing at home when I got a
text message from the Occupy Oakland alert system: "People
have broken into City Hall. Standoff with police. Support
needed." I got into my car and drove downtown. By the time I
arrived, the police had surrounded the building. I walked in
an unguarded side door and caught a glimpse of a hallway
strewn with overturned wastebaskets before a squad of police
arrived and demanded that I leave.

Outside in the plaza people were milling about. I overheard
someone say that the tires of a Channel 5 television truck
had been slashed and an unsuccessful effort had been made to
pull the camera from the shoulder of a cameraman. An
ambulance pulled up on 12th St., its lights flashing.
Photographers swarmed around it as paramedics wheeled up a
gurney and loaded an injured person into the back. I heard
someone shout, "This is what the police did." A newspaper
the next day reported that the person on the gurney was a
pregnant woman who'd been jabbed in the spleen by the
police. I hope she does not lose her spleen. I hope she does
not lose her child. If we are playing games, they are
dangerous games.

After the ambulance left, a woman dressed in black took a
bullhorn, stood at the top of the steps at the edge of the
plaza and shouted: "Mike check. Who wants to go on a Fuck
the Police March?" A good part of the crowd ignored her, but
a number of fists shot into the air, and there were shouts
of approval. A group of about150 people started to move into
the intersection at 14th and Telegraph.

It is at this point that my attention was drawn to a boy who
walked out into the street to join the group assembling for
the march. He looked to be between eight and ten years old.
His wore a gas mask that completely concealed his face and a
metal helmet. From his belt hung a pair of leather gloves.
The gas mask was odd, because there was only one police
officer in the area and he was sitting nonchalantly on his
motorcycle. None of the other demonstrators were wearing gas
masks. The boy didn't swagger, nor did he show any signs of
timidity. He was holding a small digital camera and taking
photographs. I looked around to see whether there was an
adult with him, but he appeared to be completely alone. What
was he doing there? Where were his parents? Why was nobody
paying any attention to him?

My old man's heart went out to that boy. I was tired after
marching, around half a day. I felt a bit intimidated by the
unwillingness I sensed in the boy's manner to be treated as
a child. The Fuck the Police march was about to take off. I
didn't do what I wanted to do -- go over and talk to him. He
was a child, trying to act like an adult, and in many ways
pulling it off, while the adults around him were playing
their dangerous games in the playground of the revolution. I
say this not to disparage, as Jean Quan does, for all
revolutions should among other things be play, release. And
joy.

Later, when I got home, I had another thought, tangentially
related in my mind to the problem posed for me by the little
boy and that big girl, Jean Quan, with her playground
analogy. We need to solve the conundrum of how to be a
movement that proclaims at the same time "Freedom now," and
"Freedom not quite yet" We need to be a movement that, while
remaining militant, demonstrates clearly it has overcome its
self absorption, and can reach out to those who have lived a
lot of life, suffered and managed against all odds to
preserve some dignity, who have remained afloat in a sea of
troubles, who care for the young, the old and the sick, for
neighbors families and friends. On Saturday, I looked around
as we marched through the streets. We were, a few gray hairs
excepted, overwhelmingly young. We were primarily, though by
no means exclusively white. We did not look much like a
cross-section of the blighted neighborhoods of Oakland where
an ever present struggle is taking place against poverty and
hopelessness, where foreclosed houses stand empty, and the
unemployed idle on the corner under the watchful eye of the
police.

I believe we need to be a movement against repression that
can be self regulating. We need a movement that comes to its
own definition of maturity. How could Saturday have been
different if we were such a movement? The goal of taking
over the Kaiser Center for community use was admirable, even
brilliant, but in the end the point of what was billed as
"Move-in day" got lost in meaningless rumbles with the
police and the trashing of City Hall. What if, instead of a
group within Occupy picking a target and then calling for a
day of action, we had initiated a campaign to make that
building available for community use? We could have gone out
into the neighborhoods, held meetings, where we would
discuss whether people liked the idea of occupying the
building and what they would like to see happen in the
space. With our numbers swelled and diversified by those we
had organized, we could make demands to the mayor and the
city council in the name of the people. We could
legitimately say our movement represented the 99%. Those
whom we had been organized would speak eloquently. If we
succeeded and were given the space for the community, it
would be a great victory. If, as is more likely, our
eloquence fell on deaf ears, then we could have our day of
action; we would bring thousands into the streets, we would
march on the Center, we would not have to conceal the
location of our target till the last moment. Perhaps during
the night a clandestine group would have broken into the
building. We would ring the building in great numbers. Now
would be the time for militancy, for tearing down fences,
for breaking through police lines, as well as perhaps for
nonviolent sit-ins.

This scenario might not be acceptable to insurrectionist
anarchists who do not wish to make any demands on
government. No doubt, it is open to criticism. I admit it's
an example of backstreet movement driving. But I think if we
could more effectively combine organizing and militancy it
would be much more difficult to make the case that we were
treating Oakland like our playground. Those who really treat
this country like their playground are the1%. And somewhere
in the mix of organizing and action that I imagine, I see a
place for that little boy. I see a movement that would look
after him, and gently tell him "It's okay to take off your
gas mask." Come with us.

[Osha Neumann joined the East Bay Community Law Center as a
Consulting Attorney in 2003. He has been in private practice
in Berkeley since 1987, representing political protestors,
victims of police misconduct and homeless people in cases
regarding their civil rights. He is the chairperson of
Community Defense Inc., a non-profit that promotes legal
education for poor and marginalized communities. He is also
an accomplished muralist responsible or many murals still to
be seen in Berkeley.]

===========

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate