A little more than 24 hours ago, Portland Police Chief Mike Reese admitted that his assertion to the press Thursday, that a rape victim had been neglected because of the demands of policing Occupy Portland, was not exactly accurate.
Moreover, he acknowledged in the same Portland Police Bureau news release what I asserted in my last commentary: that all the police resources employed over the past five weeks (and all the overtime money that Occupy critics have been bleating about) -- especially over the last seven days -- might not have been necessary after all.
Moreover, he acknowledged in the same Portland Police Bureau news release what I asserted in my last commentary: that all the police resources employed over the past five weeks (and all the overtime money that Occupy critics have been bleating about) -- especially over the last seven days -- might not have been necessary after all.
“Today, we tried something new,” the chief declared in yesterday’s statement. “Our Incident Commander … met with protesters before a march and asked if they wanted a police escort. When they told him no, he asked that they self-police their event and obey the law; police would only respond if there were complaints. The march participants agreed, and the event proceeded without any problems, or a police presence.”
The implicit message here, whether the chief will admit it on the record or not, is that the police were clearly a part of the problem -- possibly even the primary cause of disorder -- over the past week or more. If they’re not out in force to order, demand, and provoke, then Occupy protesters are less likely to pose a problem to anyone else.
The implicit message here, whether the chief will admit it on the record or not, is that the police were clearly a part of the problem -- possibly even the primary cause of disorder -- over the past week or more. If they’re not out in force to order, demand, and provoke, then Occupy protesters are less likely to pose a problem to anyone else.
Simple, yes? Why did this not occur to anyone before? (Actually, it did . . . to the progressive Mayor and police of Lansing, Michigan, though admittedly they’ve had to deal with a much smaller group of demonstrators -- but the collaborative approach between protesters and authorities is the essential point here.)
To be fair, Saturday’s marches in Portland had an even greater mix of professionals and older folks: health reform groups, a state legislator, and elsewhere in the city, dog owners with their pets. But that’s part of the point, too; the movement has greater reach than “dope-smoking deadbeats just looking for a handout.”
Before moving to a critique of the critics of Occupy, I wanted to provide a link to the radio interview I did Saturday night, Nov. 13, for KXL FM 101.1 on the eve of the eviction. The interviewer is KXL news reporter Pat Boyle.
This was a bit of a coup because KXL airs Glenn Beck in the mornings, and a local conservative bigmouth by the name of Lars Larson from noon to 4 p.m. For radio broadcasting, this was a massive five-minute-plus piece in which I think I got to state the case for supporting Occupy Portland at that point (you'll have to endure a short but loud ad after you click on the white arrow in the black circle):
Before moving to a critique of the critics of Occupy, I wanted to provide a link to the radio interview I did Saturday night, Nov. 13, for KXL FM 101.1 on the eve of the eviction. The interviewer is KXL news reporter Pat Boyle.
This was a bit of a coup because KXL airs Glenn Beck in the mornings, and a local conservative bigmouth by the name of Lars Larson from noon to 4 p.m. For radio broadcasting, this was a massive five-minute-plus piece in which I think I got to state the case for supporting Occupy Portland at that point (you'll have to endure a short but loud ad after you click on the white arrow in the black circle):
Listen to internet radio with JWPRadio on Blog Talk Radio
Let’s look at some of the things the cavilers have repeatedly said about the Occupy movement. . . .
THE PROTESTERS HAVE NO PLAN / WHAT DO THEY WANT?
If you’re still unclear about what Occupy protesters want, then you haven’t been paying attention. MSNBC Money columnist Michael Brush offered a tidy summation of their general economic goals more than a month ago.
Matt Taibbi also suggested, as recently as Nov. 10, that a specific plan might be a tactical mistake, or at least beside the point, for the protesters at this point.
Think about this. Occupy Wall Street (and the cascading series of protests it sparked across the country) is fighting a monstrous web of multinational corporate and financing entities interlaced with the federal government, which has been building for at least the 30 years since Reagan was elected. Of course Occupy protesters wouldn’t know quite what to do about it; I sure don’t . . . do you?
But we all know we’re not satisfied with the country this subtle but pervasive conspiracy has bequeathed to us and our children, and it’s long past time to make a lot of noise about and start a discussion of what we’re going to do. Which is the underlying point here, namely:
IF THEY HAD A PROGRAM OR A PLAN, THEN I MIGHT GET BEHIND IT
A lot of onlookers say they are sympathetic to the goals of Occupy Wall Street, but they’re not sure what to do. People keep insisting on a plan, a direction, an agenda -- as if they were consumers waiting for the rollout of Microsoft Revolution version 2.3.
But maybe it’s not the protesters’ job to achieve a focus for me or anyone else to “get behind,” which is to adopt a passive, consumer approach to activism and social change.
Honestly, camps and marches are not going to accomplish a thing in and of themselves. They never were. Their real goal is to alert, inspire, and galvanize everyone else to take action of our own, not to look to a crowd of confused, naïve kids for direction.
The Occupy protesters provide a lightning rod, a beacon out front; the rest of us, constituting a much larger proportion of the 99 percent -- who can’t afford to spend much time protesting in the parks and streets because we have to work (on the one hand); but agree that the country has gone down a very wrong track over at least the last 30 years and things have got to change (on the other) . . . we need to get to work on what we can do, how we can lobby and vote, and make noise of our own.
I don’t know about you, but to judge by my past behavior, I was afraid I didn’t have the power to effect change, that the nation’s problems were too big for me or anyone else who agrees with me to effect any substantive improvement, and I was better off just taking care of myself.
I gave up car ownership, stopped eating land-based meats, avoided soda pop and other unhealthy consumer products, and never much was one for watching television or patronizing summer blockbuster movies. I volunteered to pick up beach trash with SOLV, I participate in serving an annual Christmas dinner to several hundred homeless and low-income housing residents, and I usher for local theater companies to earn a free ticket to see shows I wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
All that improves my day-to-day existence, but it made no dent in the corporate-government power structure that made, for example, health insurance coverage expensive and/or difficult for me to maintain, and out of reach for millions of other Americans.
Occupy Wall Street is daring me and all the other middle Americans who have gotten quietly but firmly screwed by the system over the past 30 years to say, “Hey, this is unacceptable! Things have gotta change, and I’m going to demand and work for that.” That
We need to stop looking for a leader. People should quit criticizing Occupy for its tactics and style from the sidelines, which is like arguing about arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It plays into the hands of the entrenched elites.
[In my next commentary, I’ll talk about “the message has been lost,” “protesters are not the 99 percent,” “they’re trashing our parks,” and “they’ve caused a jump in crime.”]
USEFUL LINKS
Finally, when would you say the following passage was written?
"When I was growing up, ______ was still a country where people darned their socks. I even learned how to do it in school myself. Then suddenly one day it was over. Socks with holes in them were thrown out. No one bothered to repair them. The whole society changed. 'Wear it out and toss it' was the only rule that applied. As long as it was just a matter of our socks, the change didn't make much difference. But then it started to spread, until finally it became a kind of invisible moral code. I think it changed our view of right and wrong, of what you were allowed to do to other people and what you weren't. More and more people, especially young people like you, feel unwelcome in their own country. How do they react? With aggression and contempt. The most frightening thing is that I think we're only at the beginning of something that's going to get a lot worse. A generation is growing up right now, the children who are younger than you, who are going to react with even greater violence. And they have absolutely no memory of a time when we darned our socks. When we didn't throw everything away, whether it was our woolen socks or human beings."
Seems remarkably prophetic, doesn't it? It's the voice of Kurt Wallander, the hero of a marvelous series of police procedural novels by Henning Mankell, set in Sweden. This particular passage is from The Fifth Woman, first published in 1996.
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So you respond to the criticism that the occupy movement doesn't know what it wants by pointing out that it does. Then you said that it shouldn't, and finally that it really doesn't. Huh? Anyway, you guys should know what the hell you want. You're more likely to get it that way. How about bringing back Glass-Steagall?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good idea. How can you help that happen?
ReplyDeleteTo answer your initial question, the many hundreds of protesters that make up Occupy Wall Street/Portland, etc., has some very basic notions in common. I think nearly everyone within the movement, and a helluva lot of American who haven't committed to it in any way, could go for them.
But the movement has thrown around a lot of other ideas, from very specific and good ones to way-out, wacky, anarchistic ones. Occupy protesters stand for all and none of them. Nobody's in charge, and nobody's taken a poll of active protesters and supporters to determine which ones are gonna float.
I don't think that's such a bad thing. The essential thing is that Occupy got the juices flowing, and a general conversation going nationwide (more or less; quite a few critics and not a few potential supporters are still stuck on issues of style, approach, and tactics). The test will be to see which ones filter through the process and survive to get some real citizen muscle behind them.