Occupy Portland, part 10 - Was the Message Lost? And Who's the 99%?

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.”

Occupy Portland, part 9 - Latest News, and a Look at the Criticism

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.

“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.

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.)

Occupy Portland, part 8 - Aftermath . . . and Prelude

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.

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.

Occupy Portland, part 6 - An Interim Report, November 8, 2011

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.

Coming in Sick to Work - Being a Standardized Patient

[ Just so everybody's clear that "American Currents" is still my general blog and not an "All Occupy/All the Time" station, here's a commentary on a different aspect of my recent activities. There will be more to come, on other topics, as well. Stay tuned. . . ]

Yesterday I had pneumonia, complicated by my asthma, high blood pressure, and one-pack-a-day smoking habit. On Wednesday I was blind as a complication from my diabetes.

Last year, I had heart disease, lower back pain, asthma, and a drinking problem I was not inclined to be readily honest about. I look forward someday to receiving a cancer diagnosis, thyroid condition, and a sexually transmitted disease . . . but probably not a positive Pap smear.

If you’re wondering what I’ve been doing in the hospital, I work now and then as a Standardized Patient (or “SP”). This means I pretend to be a patient in medical exams conducted by first-year, second-year, and third-year medical students, nurse practitioners, and naturopaths at several medical teaching institutions in the city.

Occupy Portland, part 5 - What Am I Doing Here?

When I got home from my first morning of volunteering at the Occupy Portland site, back on Friday, Oct. 21, I posted the following status update on my Facebook wall:

“Occupy Portland has become my church.”

It was an amorphous, gut-level notion that somehow accurately described my feelings coming out of (or maybe that should be “starting into”) the experience. The next day, a friend I hadn’t seen in many months asked me what I meant by it. I didn’t have a ready answer for her. I’ve thought about it ever since.

You should know that my real church history has been uneven and spotty to effectively nonexistent. When I was a kid, my folks took me to Sunday School at First Unitarian in Eugene. They themselves were probably agnostics at that point, but they liked the social conscience and activism of that congregation, especially its pastor, the Rev. Carl Nelson, who preached early and hard against the Vietnam War.