Though things have grown quieter on the Occupy Portland front, the misleading news coverage goes on.
I checked the 11 o’clock editions of the local news Tuesday night, and though stormy winter weather had become the top story, more than one station reported that “Occupy Portland had cost the city $1.29 million in police overtime.” This of course is misleading, because the city committed those resources without ascertaining whether it really needed to. As this past weekend’s protests showed and I discussed in my last commentary, it may not have.
Among other things, the story in Tuesday’s Oregonian notes that the Police Bureau spent $4,000 in overtime in early September before police ever encountered any protesters -- “to prepare” to handle them, whatever that means. Lt. Robert King, a police spokesman, commented Tuesday that “Last weekend, we were able to pull back and they were able to march on the sidewalk and follow rules and laws….”
Actually, the police weren’t “able” to stop using so much manpower; they simply chose to give it a try, and found that it worked: “The bureau didn’t incur any overtime costs Saturday or Sunday.” It might have worked all along -- if the police bureau had been intelligent enough to attempt it sooner -- and saved much of the money the news stations said that “Occupy cost the city.”
In other news, Umpqua Bank, a fine local institution that began 58 years ago as a payroll-cashing service for lumberjacks in Canyonville and is now the largest Oregon-owned bank, contributed $25,000 toward the cleanup and upgrade of Chapman and Lownsdale Squares, the two blocks that Occupy Portland camped on for five weeks. Private individual donations from more than 100 citizens have totaled $7,000 so far. (I wonder how many of those came from Occupy critics who bleated about “the damage to our parks” the past six weeks versus supporters of Occupy Portland?)
Even this pleasant news was soured by the local television stations’ reports, during which they chose to show old footage of trash on the site, which was gone more than a week ago. I strongly suspect the photo accompanying the Oregonian’s story online is also at least a week old. Again, misleading and even biased.
I’ve seen various figures in news reports about how much it will cost to fix the parks, from $20,000 to more than $100,000, but the higher numbers may be deceptive, because I suspect the Parks Bureau is taking advantage of the timing to do repairs and upgrades that were needed before the Occupy protesters arrived at the site.
But let’s continue with the classic criticisms of Occupy Portland.
THE MESSAGE HAS BEEN/IS BEING LOST
I can’t know for certain, but I suspect a percentage of people who make this argument -- if not most of them -- were never much interested in the message in the first place. My suspicion is that they had never been the type to write or telephone their Congresspersons about pending legislation. They likely hadn’t once volunteered to feed the poor or visit the sick and elderly. And I’d be willing to bet they hadn’t ever marched in the streets to express publicly their dissatisfaction with the way the country has headed (unless, perhaps, as Tea Party protesters).
In short, I believe many of the people who say “the message has been lost” couldn’t have told you the message to begin with. To be fair, some of these folks may have sympathized with the general complaints of Occupy Wall Street about income inequities in the U.S., bank bailouts, and the influence of corporate money on the political process, but I’m not convinced they were the type who would have tried to do anything about it.
In fact, if they really did care about the message, they would be out there making sure it has a fighting chance of surviving all the blather. Instead of publicly worrying that “the message is getting lost,” they would be marching . . . or reminding their friends what’s really at stake here . . . and trying to convince their other fence-sitting friends to get on board.
Sitting back and criticizing Occupy’s style and tactics -- of course they’re naïve, of course they’re disorganized, of course they often look clumsy and at odds with themselves -- is a mug’s game. Frankly, where is there any loss in alienating citizens who would be doing nothing anyway because they thought it was all too big and they too powerless to do something about it?
THE PROTESTERS ARE NOT THE 99 PERCENT
I regularly see comments on the broadcast and news websites in which folks say “these protesters are less than 1 percent; only umpty-thousand turned out for this or that march, only a couple hundred stayed in the camp, and that’s only a teensy fraction of the city’s total population. They’re really just 1 percent, and the 99 percent are sick and tired of their antics.”
This betrays a profound misunderstanding of what the 99 percent signifies. It turns the issues raised by a massive, nationwide movement into yet another “American Idol” popularity contest, the subject of a public opinion poll.
In actual numbers, Occupy protesters indeed comprise no more than a fraction of 1 percent of the population. The national support behind them amounts to somewhere between 37 and 53 percent, depending on which poll you want to believe.
But that’s still beside the point. Whether you support the protesters or not, they claim to speak for the best interests of the vast majority of Americans who have been quietly but firmly screwed by the big banks, corporations, and their bought politicians over the past 30 years, at least. That may be 99 percent or it may be a bit less; but I think you’d have to agree that it’s a big number -- much bigger than the thousands who have turned out for the rallies, marches, and camps of the Occupy movement thus far.
You don’t buy the notion that Americans can be persuaded to vote against their own best interests? I think history suggests it has happened many times. Not so much because we are “dumb,” but because powerful and wealthy interests can sell us bogus ideas with skilled and well-funded ad campaigns, and slick spokespersons from George Will to Glenn Beck.
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To all the Occupy NIMY naysayers, the movement is closer to your front door than you think
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