The lawsuits alone from all of this will bankrupt the city if this does not stop and frankly if you look at the actual crime rate going down, the community services provided the occupation does a valuable service and should be worked with. I can only hope that more people will speak out and talk about the hostile behavior towards the police and why that makes oakland a different circumstance all around than anywhere in the US. These occupiers were not here for any sort of personal gain. They were dedicated to the cause, and now they are scared for their lives but will not back down. I can’t imagine why the US doesn’t understand the Middle Eastern Warfare climate it has turned into for an unknown reason.

But thank you for this. It is nice to actually have the truth put out there.

We have seen many bills introduced in Congress that may have been triggered by the Occupy movement, but most of them are aimed only at reversing the effect of the Citizens United ruling regarding corporate personhood and equating money to free speech. These bills are now all languishing in committee, and we don’t know if they will ever see the light of day on the floor of Congress. Even if they did and one of them got passed, this doesn’t even scratch the surface of what needs to be done. I view this as tossing a bone at a dog to keep him from barking (or biting). These proposals are little more than a temporary appeasement and returns the subject of excessive private money in politics back to the corrupting business as usual that existed before the CU ruling.

The Occupy demonstrations have succeeded in attracting attention (both positive and negative), but that is about all. Unfortunately, the attention the Occupy movement has been getting recently has been quite negative, and their message is now being drowned out by the actions and influence of Black Bloc anarchists who favor and promote insurrection to peaceful demonstrations.

The demonstrations should not be confused with getting results that attack the root of the problems in our country.

I still favor resolving the problems and injustices raised by the Occupy movement, but I no longer support their tactics. I have addressed this and many other related issues in my own blog at http://restoringdemocracy.blogspot.com/, if anybody is interested in perusing them.

Wordnerd: As you know, I agree, which is why I stress leadership and accountability (and call for Quan’s resignation several times a week). OPD’s problems long pre-date Quan or Chief Jordan, and I recognize that Oakland, with its high rate of violent crime and long history of antagonism between residents and the police, presents special challenges for the police, but something has to change, and fast. The likelihood that OPD will be taken out of the city’s control within months or even weeks obviously complicates matters greatly.

Susan Mernit: I guess that’s the million dollar question. I haven’t read up yet on the changes Chief Jordan made to his command staff on Thursday, but perhaps that shuffling is an effort at accountability of some kind, or at least an effort to improve performance going forward. As for where Occupy Oakland goes from here…who knows? I have some guesses (some hopeful, some depressing), but I really don’t know enough about the debates and discussions going on among occupiers (and wow, there sure are some debates and discussions going on!) to speculate here.

“The status quo is unsustainable,” she said. “The longer the Assad regime continues its attacks on the Syrian people and stands in the way of a peaceful transition, the greater the concern that instability will escalate and spill over throughout the region.”

Replace Syria with Oakland and Assad with Quan.

thanks