The End of Occupy

[shannon_a]

So it looks like the Occupy Oakland movement is thankfully over in large part. Quan was driven to do the right thing by her City Council and/or department heads. She was clearly dragged along kicking and screaming, so the benefit doesn't really accrue to her. But, the 19th Street encampment was cleared on Sunday morning and the Snow Park annex was cleared this morning.

From the start, I wondered whether the Occupy movement was going to do any progressive political good. Seeing the druggies and thugs who made up the Oakland encampment, I question that even more. However, looking back, there were probably some positives. Certainly, the national conversation changed a bit, but I think there was as much bad as good there. As the Occupy encampments descended into Lord of the Flies-like hives of scum and villainy, a lot of political good will got pissed away.  But there will probably still be one remaining benefit: through the Occupy movement, it became OK to say that it was unacceptable for the Rich to get Richer while the Poor get Poorer. Saying that government should work for the 99% is a strong message that has interesting undertones. After the public spent decades blindly sucking at the teats of the Republicans every time they rolled out their tired-old cry of "Class Warfare" for anything that didn't screw the Middle Class, that's a pretty big gain.

However, the Occupy movement was also deeply flawed by not exactly its lawlessness (because Civil Disobedience is a well-respected sort of moralism in this country, thank you Mr. Thoreau) but by its anarchic and mindless lawlessness, by its blatant disrespect and disregard for the very peoples that it was supposed to be supporting.

I've written elsewhere about this disregard, about how the Occupiers don't care about the local businesses they're hurting (and even have mocked them in some quotes I've seen in newspapers). They also don't seem to care about the parks they're destroying (according to today's news reports, they left 21 truckloads of garbage behind at Snow Park, thanks very much). I of course had a bottle thrown at me Saturday night for absolutely no reason and am lucky I didn't end up injured (or under the wheels of a nearby car).  And that's to say nothing about the rioters & arsonists that the Occupiers as a whole supported by allowing them to remain members of their encampments.

I'm even more disturbed by how mindlessly Progressive reporters have embraced the Occupy movement. Their stories were so short of analysis (and, sometimes, reality) that I had to wonder at times if I'd accidentally stumbled onto Fox News. For example, the night I had a bottle thrown at me just past 19th Street, the Daily Kos was chirpily reporting how happy they were the the Occupiers had occupied that plot of muddy land by 19th Street and that it was a big success for progressivism.

I found a "news" report on the Berkeley Daily Planet even more loathsome. I actually stopped reading the paper years ago because it fell so far short of journalism, but this weekend I was reading about the Intermezzo fire there and stumbled across a report on Occupations, which said in part the the Occupy camps were being taken down all over the United States as part of a coordinated response. I stopped and reread that again, and came to the conclusion that, yes, the idiot BDP "reporter" really did think there was a secret cabal of Occupy haters who were working together like the 9/11 bombers to bring down Occupy camps simultaneously because .... profit (I guess!?). It was very clever for Jean Quan to hold out so long against common sense, so that she could be part of that "coordinated" shutdown.

So, hopefully we've seen the end of Occupy in the East Bay, as rains start to come down with increasing frequency and as Cal students have to start worrying about finals. As I said, I support the core ideals, but I think the actual presence has been a mockery of those ideals, liable to do more damage to the progressive movement the more it goes on.  

Comments

[catwithclaws.livejournal.com]

Yes! That weird coordinated plot argument came up in some UC Davis blogs this weekend and I'm totally baffled.

Not only is it ridiculous, not possible to know or prove, but UCD is NOT that coordinated to be a part of some plot. Really people. Stick to arguments that make you sound sane, I'll give you more respect then :P