This Is Why You Should Go See The Protests for Yourself Instead of Listening to an Armchair Conservative
Occupy Wall Street is a response to the fact 1% of this country control a huge amount of its wealth and the political process. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant or would rather try to discredit the movement by focusing on the actions of a mentally ill man in the OWS-Oakland camp this week.
Today, 3,000 people marched through the streets of Oakland. The protest is peaceful. It is on public property and is action that should be protected by the First Amendment. If the Oakland city government wanted to act in support of this non-violent action to push for true financial and government reform, it would not have sent in over 500 riot police armed with shotguns, truncheons, riot shields and tear gas. They would not have deployed APCs and used military grade sonic weapons on protestors. Anyone who thinks the Oakland police or government has acted in support of OWS or has acted reasonably needs to spend some time at the protest.
Over 100 people were arrested today. A peaceful march resulted in a violent reaction from the Oakland Police Department. Things began early this morning when police officers invaded the OWS camp, tore up tents, used flash grenades and tear gas and physically removed protestors from the plaza.
Later this evening, after the march where more individuals were arrested while protesting non-violently; police fired multiple salvos of tear gas and flash grenades at peacefully assembled protestors. The local news estimated that 500 riot police were on hand to deal with a protest that was lawful and non-violent. Individuals were shot with tear gas canisters, bean bags and rubber bullets. The police did this multiple times and without substantial provocation. The Oakland government spent thousands of dollars on helicopters and overtime in order to try and stop people from speaking out against the systemic economic inequality in this country.
I'm proud to see other Boalt students out there, both doing Legal Observer work and simply adding their voices and presence to the OWS movement. I would encourage everyone to come see for themselves what is happening in downtown Oakland instead of relying on the accounts of individuals who aren't actively going to OWS and aren't sympathetic to the 99%.
Labels: OWS
posted by James at 1:57 AM
50 Comments:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/25/BAUB1LLTC9.DTL&ao=all
Protesters trying to "retake" public property? Throwing things at police, smashing windows, setting trash cans on fire? This doesn't sound peaceful at all.
Was there some other Occupy Oakland protest that was peaceful?
Or maybe the Chronicle reporters weren't there...
"Lawful?" did they have a permit?
Can anyone go and pitch a tent in the middle of the city and live there? is that lawful?
and what's a military grade sonic weapon, and can I get a civilian-grade sonic weapon or would that just be a fog horn or a whistle?
The first amendment doesn't make it lawful to do whatever you want on public land whenever you want to. It doesn't let you do a spontaneous march down a public street, blocking traffic and violating other people's rights.
Nor does the first amendment right to protest let you continuously camp on public property. There is a reason we have health, safety, and welfare laws. The first amendment does not provide immunity from such laws.
6:02:
What's the reason? I don't argue that there should be no welfare laws whatsoever, but surely we can agree that illegal camping (normal consequences: a ticket and a $150 fine) does not merit hundreds of cops in riot gear, tear gas, and flash grenades.
Just because something's "illegal" doesn't make it wrong, and doesn't give the government justification to use whatever force necessary to stop it from happening. Believing that it does means you believe much more in a fascist state than a democratic one.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/police-raid-occupy-oakland-encampment-arrest-dozens.html
This all started last week when protesters denied Police access to the Occupy camp when attempting to respond to a report of a sexual assault. The removal didn't turn violent until protesters started throwing paint, bottles, and glass at officers. Maybe this was an overreaction on the part of the police, but this was not an entirely peaceful protest. It is disingenuous to claim otherwise. Responsibility for this sad turn of events lies on both sides.
1. When a crowd of people try to tear down barricades, force their way past law enforcement, and "retake" an area, that is not peaceful.
2. When individuals throw objects at the police, including bottles, rocks, and explosives, that is not peaceful.
3. When the crowd does both of these things, it is not excessive for the police to respond with things like tear gas. And it's a good thing the officers had the riot shields.
4. Saying the word "peaceful" over and over doesn't make it true. As it turns out, I was at Ogawa Plaza yesterday. Based on your description, James, it's hard to believe you were on Planet Earth.
One more thing: as anyone with ANY legal training will know, the First Amendment permits reasonable restrictions on the use of traditional public forums, such as plazas.
I'm fairly certain these include (1) no permanent camping, (2) no public urination and defecation, (3) no activities that would create public health issues, such as an increasing rat infestation, (4) no preventing the police, EMTs, and fire officials from ensuring public safety, and (5) no "retaking" territory or attacking police officers with bottles, rocks, and explosives.
I don't expect random OWS protesters to understand the First Amendment, but I would expect that of a Boaltie.
1. No one tried to "tear down barricades." It would have resulted in serious injuries given the number if police, how they were armed and the way they behaved.
2. Like I said in the above post, after 9pm the only thing thrown at police were the lone empty plastic water bottle (which would immediately result in a response of several tear gas canisters and flash bang grenades being shot/thrown directly into the middle of hundreds of people) and a single tear gas canister which was thrown back at police in the first altercation around 930. At the end of the day, you can go off of inaccurate and overbroad reporting or you can go see for yourself - I decided to do the latter.
3. Ardently defending carving out more and more of our Constitutional rights is not something I'd think a Boaltie would jump to, but y'all seem pretty into it (it's actually hilarious to me that this is considered a viable insult - "it's not what a Boaltie would do" is probably the weakest personal attack I've received on this site).
Anyway, for all of you out there who aren't insistent on being reactionary and trying to justify police violence towards non-violent individuals by invoking public health laws, come on down and see for yourselves.
None of the appeals to legal precedent among these comments seem to recognize the fact that the massive inequalities that motivated this movement arose through perfectly legal avenues OR through the total failure to enforce the law. If you think that there's a perfectly legal way to attract the kind of attention to these issues that this movement has, let's hear it. But the fact of the matter is that no legally recognized entity organizing itself through the myriad privatized modes of public discourse (and I include eBlogger among them) has accomplished the kind of dialog and imagination that this movement has. That the attempt to facilitate a peaceful, egalitarian conversation about the on-going political and economic crisis in the U.S. and around the world can only assume the form of civil disobedience today is profoundly illuminating of the extent and complexity of this crisis. It certainly says more than these shrill proclamations that the city's ordinances are the only way to secure the public sphere (proclamations that, once again, are being expressed through privately owned media). Because who gives a shit what the dispossessed and often homeless lowest one percent thinks anyway? They should get a job, an apartment in Berkeley, and a smartphone if they want to participate in politics.
1. "Occupy Oakland protesters pull back police barricades after returning to 14th and Broadway near by Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday evening, Oct. 25, 2011." [Photo 20 of the Oakland Tribune gallery]
2. According to the Trib, Occupy Oakland organizers sent tweets encouraging people to congregate at certain areas and "bring bottles." The Chronicle reported "Police forcibly dispersed the crowd with tear gas again about 9:30 p.m., when protesters began throwing objects at them...Minutes later, protesters regrouped at the 15th Street entrance to the plaza. Protesters began throwing objects again. Police responded by firing more tear gas canisters." Almost every report I've seen indicated that tear gas was used only when individuals began throwing things.
I have no idea where you got the idea that a "lone empty plastic water bottle" was the catalyst. That's not what newspaper reporters saw firsthand. And quite frankly, I think your perception on things is a bit unhinged.
3. The First Amendment doesn't mean that everyone can do whatever the hell they want, no matter how it affects other people. Nor should it. I'm all for aspirational discussions about constituitonal law, but it often appears that you don't have any idea what you're talking about.
C'mon Carbolic. That's two in your response. Rise above the ad hominem.
DisplayNamesAreNecessaryIllusions, thanks for chiming in. I just have three comments.
First, I don't think the issue is whether a protest has to be perfectly legal to be either permitted or successful. The issue is what to do when the protest disregards so many rules that it is becoming dangerous.
In contrast to Oakland, the Occupy Wall Street protest in NYC kept an open dialogue with local officials. As a result, when the a sanitation issue arose, the protesters and the park owners were able to come to an agreement. In contrast, Occupy Oakland refused to work with the city. For example, they wouldn't let fire officials onto the site to prevent the risk of a deadly fire. That's a problem.
Second, protests don't need to involve civil disobedience, and civil disobedience doesn't need to involve violence. There were some last night that were trying to spark rioting and provoke a police response. That was neither necessary nor helpful.
Third, a movement claiming to represent 99% has to be tolerant of a wide range of views. After all, I'm in the lower 99% of earners, too.
We're discussing two separate parts of the day.
You're relying on news accounts and a few pictures of what happened during a 3,000 person protest, I'm providing an eyewitness account of what went on after 9pm - the crowd was teargassed four times while being non-violent and largely relaxed. I've yet to see anything you've posted rebutting this account. Yet, you seem obsessed with two poorly written news articles that chronicle events earlier in the day and are decidedly pro-police.
The protest didn't "disregard so many rules that it became dangerous." Moving a barricade isn't dangerous. Shooting someone in the face with a tear gas canister certainly is. Seriously, though, go down to whatever OWS is nearest you and observe for yourself. Papers tend to want to sensationalize situations and are generally pro-police. In the Tribune article you linked to way more print is given to police/government opinions and accounts of the situation. It should be noted that no police injuries are reported in the article, but several civilian injuries are.
Instead of focusing on the real issues - the overuse of police force to silence protest in the US, you'd rather obsess over whether or not a few plastic bottles where thrown or a barricade was moved. Instead of deal with the issues behind the protest - the fact that our government gives trillions of dollars to big business while cutting off support to the poor and middle class - you'd rather obsess over "why we can't have nice things." Most of the people in the US can't have nice things because they can't get a good education, affordable healthcare or a job that can provide money for either of those things, not because they've finally decided to stand up and try to do something about it.
An example of the state violence some of you are so supportive of: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/oct/26/occupy-oakland-protests-live#block-9
We in Occupy Chicago have heard similar "arguments" about the supremacy of municipal ordinances over constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. I responded to one critic who accused us of not understanding our first amendment rights in a manner that I think applies well to this discussion:
I do not agree with Sabrina when she argues that time, place, and manner restrictions on the right to free speech - also often used to justify so-called free speech zones at protests - invalidate our actions and undermine our appeals to the constitution. Even if one could argue that such restrictions somehow justify the past two weeks' arrests, the two-tiered system of justice that America's political and economic elites have created to expedite their massive accumulation of private wealth makes appeals to past Supreme Court rulings ring hollow. Why should we allow ourselves to be muzzled by legal precedent when what we proclaim is the unprecedented siege on the rule of law authorized by corporate citizens and their cynical cronies in Washington?
Here's a little Founding Fathers knowledge to think about:
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." - Patrick Henry
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
"The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." - James Madison
"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter." - George Washington
I wasn't there and don't know much about what happened, but this looks fairly incriminating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardian.co.uk%2Fworld%2Fblog%2F2011%2Foct%2F26%2Foccupy-oakland-protests-live%3FCMP%3DNECNETTXT8187&feature=player_embedded.
I know cops see their colleagues get killed in the line of duty and that their role in situations like this must be really frustrating. But Carbolic, I'd like to see you explain how this video depicts a reasonable use of force necessary to accomplish a legitimate police purpose.
But whether James is right or Carbolic is right, this seems like a pretty big defeat for OWS. We're watching video of some members of the 99% (protesters) fighting other members of the 99% (cops; firefighters; city civil servants; city politicians). And we're debating intractable secondary and tertiary issues like police brutality and the first amendment, same we always do when there's a protest, instead of talking about the issues OWS was supposed to get us to focus on: the distribution of wealth, our economic system, the causes of the economic crisis, etc.
The conversation is a lot bigger than some reactionary BS on a law school blog.
OWS-Oakland will continue, just like OWS in over 900 cities in the US. We're the 99% and we're finally waking up.
A mob, even if it's your mob, is still a mob.
I love it when bashers of originalism turn to quotations from the founders (using that term very loosely, as apparently we are).
I am all for the protests (it's about time!) but within the confines of speech, not violence. My challenge to the quote-poster is to identify why the events in Oakland qualify as pure speech, and not speech-plus-non-speech-violence. Even the founders (to the degree you find their disembodied statements dispositive -- I don't because I believe in a living Constitution) would have agreed that the second category is suppressible. That's pretty much what local governments are for, after all.
My impression is that it was non-speech events that prompted the city to act. I could be wrong. But if I'm not wrong, then it isn't fair to say the city acted with the objective to suppress speech.
(. . . . and, just in case it is a point of confusion, the First Amendment is totally cool with actions in furtherance of legitimate government interests -- like public safety -- that happen to work an incidental burden on speech. More to the point, so is the current Supreme Court.)
Don't be fatuous, Patrick. That's just like your opinion, man. I know my rights.
It didn't take just "speech" within an oppressive legal framework to overthrow the tyranny that the founders opposed.
Civil disobedience is just that and at every point of change in American history, the reactionary perspective has been exactly what some here have espoused. Hey Rosa Parks, stop breaking the law, hey Birmingham marchers, stop breaking the law, hey Vietnam protestors, stop breaking the law. A legalistic argument against civil disobedience is bullshit. The legal system is not democratic, it's autocratic. The people who make and enforce the laws do so to keep the status quo. Instead of nitpicking the protestors, Patrick, you should be applying the same level of scrutiny to the police action. Instead of being an armchair legalist, you should consider the difference between an odd bottle being thrown and the deployment of force shown in the videos that are all around the internet. Instead of tacitly backing police oppression, you should ask why the police are deployed that way in the first place.
Um, that's actually exactly what I was asking -- why were the police deployed in the first place?
(And also, marmots, wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city - that aint legal either.)
As has been noted around the web - multiple times when the police were about to act against the protestors, news choppers had to go "refuel" or cut their live feeds for one reason or another.
They were deployed because the government wants to silence the protest.
Those evil, conspiring Oakland Democrats! Does this mean all you dirty hippies are voting Republican now?
Patrick, rather than appealing to strict originalism, the above references to the founding fathers appear to be an attempt to recover the meaning of civil liberties from the clutches of the zombified legalism that you promote. Even if the police were officially responding to non-speech related activities, it's patently obvious that their mission was to disperse a peacefully assembled crowd.
Although I support OWS's ideals, it's a total waste of time.
What people have not mentioned is that the one place freedom of speech has been strongly protected is in the area of campaign contributions. The efforts need to be towards getting an exception to this via constitutional ammendment. Until the money is taken out of politics, everyone is just wasting their time.
Carbolic's and Jame's accounts aren't mutually exclusive:
* Earlier in the day, the protesters were violent and had it coming.
* Later in the day, the protesters were peaceful and police overreacted.
Likewise, I don't think the responses are mutually exclusive either:
* The police should exercise greater restraint when there is no violence.
* If the protesters don't want the police to intervene, they need to police themselves.
Or figure out a way to cooperate with the police. If someone reports a sexual assault within the Occupy Oakland encampment, the police need to investigate. OWS isn't anti-police (well, most of it isn't). There's nothing ideologically inconsistent with letting the police in for a bit to take a report.
Anyhow, OWS is full of smart folks. I'm sure you'll figure something out.
How do you get plugged into legal observer work? I recall we had Boalties in the observer hats on campus last year during the student protests. Where do you even get the hats?
How do you get plugged into legal observer work? I recall we had Boalties in the observer hats on campus last year during the student protests. Where do you even get the hats?
Chris: Just stick your leg under a scooter and scream like bloody hell.
Chris Brown: various boalt students (ir)regularly conduct legal observer training during the year. once have attended a training, you qualify as a "legal observer."
if you're looking for something more immediate--this friday at 6pm, there is a training being conducted in SF at UC Hastings, room b.
I don't have time to get into another tete-a-tete with James--after all, we have a whole new night of OWS starting--but I'd just like to include a quote from this Chron article:
"Tuesday's protest devolved into a volley of rocks and tear gas, and around 10 p.m. organizers took to bullhorns to plead with the masked agitators to stop throwing projectiles at police lines. "If you throw something, you're as bad as a cop," one speaker said to the applause of several hundred people.
"A chant followed, conveying the same message, but then someone from the back of the crowd lobbed a glass bottle that shattered on police helmets. Officers responded, lobbing tear gas again."
So much for an entirely peaceful protest after 9 p.m. I understand that all it takes is a few individual to spark violence. Hopefully those individuals won't be active tonight.
madison, again: "Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing." that goes for cops and protestors and the rest of us.
I think the biggest problem I hear with the OWS people is this vain, disingenuous argument that what they do is legal.
Civil disobedience is (oh shit) illegal! And yes, EVERYTHING that is illegal is wrong. That is, in fact, one of the most fundamentally important aspects of legality in a society. If it is legal, it is okay; if it is illegal, it is wrong.
It is another question altogether whether civil disobedience is necessary to protect one's rights under the Constitution. My thoughts? Fuck no. Dirty hippie James? Probably disagrees.
@ 8:59: I'm not even for or against the protesters, but you sound like a total douche. Legal=ok, illegal=wrong? Lol, does it piss you off to see people blazing up and no one else giving a shit?
Here's a thought: Fuck the police AND the protesters.
From the Guardian's excellent coverage of the OWS protests (quoting the NLG's statement on the Tuesday night actions):
The Oakland Police Department (OPD) flagrantly violated its own Crowd Management and Crowd Control Policy and foundational principles of international human rights law during its dispersal on Tuesday morning of peacefully assembled citizens at Occupy Oakland.
On Tuesday morning, hundreds of riot police used "less-lethal" projectiles and tear gas to disperse a largely peaceful assembly. Scott Olsen, an Iraqi war veteran and Occupy protester, was hit in the head with a projectile and is now in the hospital in critical condition with a fractured skull. After Scott was hit, video evidence shows him lying on the ground and shows that police made no moves to come to his aid. Rather, video shows that when a small group of protesters went to assist Scott, the OPD fired a projectile (what appears to be a sound and light diversionary device or "flash-bang") directly at the group who came to his aid, in clear violation of OPD Policy that such devices be "deployed to explode at a safe distance from the crowd to minimize the risk of personal injury."
The Police Department initially denied the use of certain projectiles. However, significant evidence from the scene and reports from protesters suggest that the police used both "flash bang" projectiles and rubber bullets.
This is only the latest incident of excessive and violent policing of Occupy protests by US police departments. At Occupy Wall Street, police have driven scooters and ridden horses into groups of protesters; punched, thrown, pushed, and hit protesters with batons; and used pepper spray against them. Journalists and legal observers have also been subjected to violence.
We call for an immediate, effective, and independent investigation into the violent police response to the Occupy demonstration in Oakland, and for OPD officers and commanders to be held responsible for their violent acts. Police training and practices should be reformed to ensure that police respect the rights of protesters to peacefully assemble and protest, and at a minimum, actually comply with their own Crowd Control Policy.
The use of excessive and violent policing in response to the ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in the United States must end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yIEgZxU1kc
Someone I know was almost murdered the other night by police. He's looking better this morning. I hope he survives.
The snide comments on here make me sick.
It really does beg the question, why didn't you even mention that a protestor was almost killed in your article, Carbolic? Instead, you basically celebrated the police action.
Yeah, Carbolic, nobody likes a question begger.
Is this a discussion of whether what OWS people are doing is right, or what the police is doing is wrong?
http://gawker.com/5853779/jon-stewart-what-the-fuck-happened-in-oakland
If I had a dollar for every time Capitalism was blamed for problems caused by the Government, I'd be a fat filmmaker with a baseball cap.
Fat filmmakers with baseball caps once were a dime a dozen. Under capitalism, they inflated to twelve cents a dozen, fourteen cents, and before you know it, your stock, no-frills FFWABC'll cost you upwards of $0.75!
Michael Moore stopped by last night.
Well, it seems like some N&B commenters have fallen to the right of the rest of the world as what happened on Tuesday has been almost uniformly condemned.
Yes, I condemn the actions of the OWS people.
It's okay to fall to the right of most other people, just like it's okay to fall to the left of most other people. That said, all the people I know who hate Moore and are at least skeptical of the Occupy movement, myself included, nonetheless think OPD's behavior was shameful. Isn't police overreaction a bad thing? Do people really think there wasn't overreaction in this case?
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