Occupy Portland, part 7 - I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

Tonight, I am in mourning. Perhaps that should be pre-mourning, because the death hasn’t happened yet, but I’m afraid it’s coming fast.

Two days ago, in my last commentary on this blog, I promised to give readers a tour of the Occupy Portland camp, but circumstances have overtaken me. It looks very much like push has come to shove in Stumptown, because Thursday morning the Mayor and Police Chief of Portland gave the protesters an eviction notice: they have been told to clear the parks they have occupied for the past five weeks by midnight Saturday, about 48 hours from now.

Mayor Sam Adams, who sympathizes with the political-economic goals of the Occupy movement, has decided that the protesters have lost too much support across the city for him to continue to allow them to camp on the site without a permit.

The real message is that Occupy Portland has lost the war for the hearts and minds of the rest of the city; at least, the mayor and many others in city government believe this to be the case, based on complaints from neighboring businesses, highly publicized if relatively isolated criminal incidents and arrests on or near the site, and the constant carping of ignorant critics on the websites of the newspaper and the various local news stations.

The ironic part is that news reporting on the ground by the local daily newspaper, the Oregonian, especially by Anne Saker, has gotten steadily more fair and accurate as the weeks have passed. (Unfortunately, in contrast, the editorial board continues to be tin-eared and lead-footed; see, for example, Tuesday’s lead editorial.)

Comments by Portland Police spokesmen also have become more careful in recent days to avoid directly blaming Occupy Portland protesters for the occasional arrests and other problems relating to vandalism, stolen goods, occasional drug use or dealing, and violence. In a Tuesday news story, for instance, a Portland Police commander noted the uptick in crime, reported that stolen goods had turned up in the camp, but never once directly blames Occupy protesters.

However, conditioned by weeks of inaccurate and unfair media coverage, many Portlanders simply did not know how to read and view the latest news stories with a properly critical eye, I suspect.

All right, so crime has risen 18 percent in the neighborhood, but is that any proof that protesters are lawbreakers . . . or is it more a reflection of the fact that the camp stands across the street from the county jail, which releases an average of 20 prisoners a day? That those newly released prisoners likely availed themselves of the free meals available at the camp instead of slinking off to homes and friends elsewhere in Portland, or heading out of town? And that there simply is a beefed-up police presence in the immediate neighborhood to observe and respond to crimes?

My past couple of weeks experiencing conditions inside the Occupy Portland camp and reading the media coverage and public criticism outside of it have been the closest I’ve come to having an Alice In Wonderland experience. I’ve been stunned and amazed by the incredibly topsy-turvy relationship between the two, because there simply IS no relationship . . . no points of connection at all.

The veteran protesters of Occupy Portland and some of their ardent supporters who volunteer huge amounts of their time have been optimistic, idealistic, full of enthusiasm and hope, bursting with ideas and plans, both at the local level and for national and international change. Outside, multiple voices called the protesters “loser/hippies,” “shreds of human debris,” “bratty belligerent children,” and are now saying “They will get exactly what they deserve.”

I finally made it to a General Assembly meeting Thursday night. Of course there were occasional goofy ideas and catcalls from the crowd, but most of the speakers were thoughtful, articulate, optimistic, and displayed remarkable intellects. If the critics had been there, they wouldn’t have recognized their caricatures among the participants of the GA.

The questions for the rest of us are: What will we do if and when the police move in on Saturday night?

And what are we going to do in the future to help bring about the positive changes that Occupy Portland, and the entire nationwide Occupy movement, has stood for?

• 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?
• Go to Occupy Portland, part 6 - Nov. 8 Interim Report