Conditions at the Occupy Portland site have settled into an ongoing if uneasy truce. An offshoot of the movement -- largely not in accord with the main body of protesters, as best as I understand it -- has been trying to create a permanent tent camp on federal land one block south of the main encampment.
The federal park is known as Terry Schrunk Plaza. It contains a grassy area that slopes gently down to a small brick amphitheater where I have watched friends perform Shakespeare in years past. Pictured below is the brick amphitheater space, where a band was setting up last Saturday afternoon to entertain the protesters. Schrunk Plaza is a public space that requires no permit or fees for temporary use, but overnight stays are prohibited.
Although Occupy Portland holds its General Assembly meeting, which can last two to four hours, in Schrunk Plaza every night at 7 p.m., the main body of the protesters understands and abides by the regulations to clear the area overnight. A splinter group has chained itself to one another and the site for the past three evenings; so far, the feds are holding back.
The camp has maintained an interesting relationship with the mayor and police. Initially, Mayor Sam Adams gave his permission for the protesters to occupy the two squares without a permit. (Interestingly, the Portland Parks and Recreation web pages for Chapman and Lownsdale Squares both say that historically, these locations “were lively places where orators held forth and citizens assembled,” so one could say that, curfew and permitting violations aside, the Occupy protesters are making precisely the proper use of these spaces.
There have been occasional flare-ups over the past four weeks, due partly to fragmented aims of protesters with different ideas and agendas:
· the police cleared the encampment off Main Street, the thoroughfare between the two blocks of the camp, on Oct. 12, and most protesters moved willingly and peaceably, though 8 decided to undergo arrest
· a splinter Occupy group tried to break curfew in Jamison Square, a much more urban and open park in a fairly upscale downtown neighborhood, on Oct. 29; as before, most of the people present cleared the space when requested by police, but 27 protesters allowed themselves to be arrested
· Occupy-related marches, tied to union concerns, to “Bank Transfer Day,” to protest business luncheons to honor CEOs, or created by outsiders to express support for the camp, have occurred several times a week since Oct. 6, but the one on Nov. 2, ostensibly to support Scott Olsen, the U.S. Marine veteran critically injured by Oakland Police, turned especially boisterous, and a man was arrested allegedly for shoving a police officer into a bus and injuring him slightly
A critical point about these events is that the veterans of the Occupy Portland camp, the ones who have been on site steadily since Oct. 6 and organized activities there, did not participate in most of the off-site marches, protests, and attempted occupations. In many cases, they didn’t necessarily even agree with them.
I’ve mentioned before that Occupy Portland has been loaded down by homeless people, mentally ill folk, and newly-released prisoners from the county jail across the street -- none of which I imagine the protesters anticipated when they proposed to occupy the site, and none of which they have the professional expertise to handle.
I’ve mentioned before that Occupy Portland has been loaded down by homeless people, mentally ill folk, and newly-released prisoners from the county jail across the street -- none of which I imagine the protesters anticipated when they proposed to occupy the site, and none of which they have the professional expertise to handle.
Beyond that huge challenge -- one that Occupy critics and the media have capitalized on by regularly confusing these hangers-on and parasites with the Occupy movement -- comes the issue that different protesters favor different strategies and goals, and the only way to act on them is to participate in the consensus process of the General Assembly and abide by its votes . . . or splinter away and do their own thing with whomever will go along. And they’ve been doing both.
The increasingly wet and cold weather the past week and a half hasn’t done much to help the protesters’ comfort, or supported their attempts to maintain a fairly orderly and clean encampment.
But back to the mayor and police. Mayor Adams has had political problems of his own over the three years he has been in office. He announced last July (more than two months before Occupy Portland got underway) that he would not run for re-election in 2012.
If he had intended to run again, the mayor would probably be more circumspect in his sympathy for the Occupy movement. But as a lame duck, he has an easier time reining in the police and letting the protesters have the site for their camp, as well as weathering all the disdain and abuse from the peanut gallery.
The movement is in a war for the hearts and minds of the middle-, working-, and even upper-class of Portland, as well as the rest of the state; and while conservative critics have flooded the comments columns of the local newspaper’s and television stations’ web sites with calumny about “drug-addled, violent deadbeats who can’t hold down a job,” the donations of cash and goods I see from well-dressed visitors every time I go to the Occupy Portland camp indicates that the war is ongoing and as yet undecided.
A good part of the resistance to Occupy Portland comes out of media reports about isolated incidents of unpleasantness and the occasional arrest at the site for drugs, outstanding warrants, or other incidents. (That's Erica Nochlin, a reporter for KATU, Channel 2, at right, preparing to do a live report for the 5 o'clock news last Saturday from the corner of SW 4th and Madison, just southwest of the Occupy site.) It may be that these amount to no more arrests than occur elsewhere downtown in the normal run of business, but nobody’s measured that, as far as I can tell.
Also, people who absorb only such coverage imagine the camp is filthy and dangerous, peopled by drug-addicted losers, without actually having gone down there to see for themselves and talk to the committed and passionate protesters who have been there day in and day out since Oct. 6.
For them, and for my out-of-town readers, my next commentary will offer a tour of the Occupy Portland camp, with lots of photos. . . .
- Go to Occupy Portland, part 1 - First Impressions
- Go to Occupy Portland, part 2 - This is Bigger Than You Think
- Go to Occupy Portland, part 3 - Democracy is Messy
- Go to Occupy Portland, part 4 - You Know . . . Maybe They Really ARE Fighting Dirty
- Go to Occupy Portland, part 5 - What Am I Doing Here?
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