It is almost exactly a week since zero hour for the Occupy Portland camp -- the Sunday morning, 12:01 a.m. “eviction” deadline set by Mayor Sam Adams.
The camp didn’t really get “swept” until the following afternoon, in a masterful display of tactical strategy and mostly smooth execution by Portland Police, with a lot of assistance from outside law enforcement agencies. Part of me felt, and continues to feel, that the camp had run its course, and it was just as well that it ended when and as it did.
Things have gotten uglier, unfortunately … though not half as bad as the local media and police have tried to make them appear. Marches and small localized protests have continued daily. Thursday, November 17, was the two-month anniversary of the launch of Occupy Wall Street, and Portland avidly joined in the demonstrations that occurred all across the country to commemorate and celebrate it.
In response, law enforcement agencies ramped up the pressure. Portland Police brought in even more support from outside agencies, officers on horseback and in full riot gear patrolled the streets, and for the first time -- on Thursday -- pepper spray was employed on protesters in Portland … to vivid public relations effect. By the time I walked my dog Thursday evening, the constant beating of TV helicopters above the downtown had become an irritant, making me feel as if I were living in a war zone. (A totally unwarranted impression, I might add, for which I again fault the police and the media alone.)
Up to this point, Police Chief Mike Reese had gotten strong support from the ranks and much of the public; for several weeks already, he had even been touted as a potential candidate for mayor. But on Thursday he told the local media that all the police resources held down by Occupy Portland protesters had badly slowed reaction time to other types of crime, such as the report of a rape of a 15-year-old victim that went uninvestigated for three hours. A day later, the press discovered he had been lying -- an egregious misstep.
It has been far too long since my last commentary here -- more than a week. I have not been out on the streets with the protesters since eviction night, but though I have carried on with my own life and career demands, Occupy Portland has never been more on my mind. I’ve watched much of the near-saturation TV coverage, smirking and sighing at its absurdities and errors, and braved a number of firefights with Facebook connections. I've alienated a friend or two, and gained new ones.
This is still largely a public relations war for the hearts and minds of working- and middle-class Americans, and from where I sit, no matter what anyone claims, the engagement remains a toss-up. I could write about what I saw and experienced on “eviction night”; I could say a lot about the performance of law enforcement and the local media in the days since.
But it seems to me the most timely activity would be to summarize the issues that have buzzed around the Occupy movement -- in conversations, in the comments sections of print and broadcast news websites, and on Internet social media. It’s been a stressful yet thrilling week for me and thousands of others across the city (not to mention the millions looking at and dealing with Occupy protests elsewhere in the nation and across the globe; tonight, as I write, women heavily shrouded in burkhas are battling physically with police in Egypt). It has also been invigorating for me as a writer to try to counter, head-on, the platitudes and (I will argue) mostly unexamined complaints and myths about these world-shaking protests.
Below, I’ve provided links to some of the more interesting and memorable comments and news developments of the past week or so. In my next commentary, coming very soon, I’ll start to address those myths and platitudes. . . .
USEFUL LINKS
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