The establishment will try desperately to use last night's violent police assault to discredit the Occupy movement in the eyes of the public. It is critical we counter the propaganda with the truth: Occupy Oakland did not clash with the police. Rather, the police crushed Occupy Oakland completely and kept the Occupiers in custody while repeatedly attacking its sympathizers in the streets.
While the spirit of Occupy Oakland lives on in the hearts and minds of its members and sympathizers, for now the 'occupation' itself is over. It was physically crushed yesterday in a pre-dawn raid and has not yet been re-established. Of the roughly 170 campers taking part in the occupation at the time of the raid, about 100 of them were arrested--and they remained in custody throughout yesterday's events. If you were camping in the plaza yesterday at dawn, chances are you were still in jail during last night's protests. It is ludicrous to blame people in Santa Rita jail for what happened in the streets of Oakland some 27 miles away.
So if not 'Occupy Oakland' itself, who massed in the streets last night? Sympathizers. Friends. Allies. Concerned citizens. Nurses. Teachers. Students. Members of the 99% all, they felt compelled to take to the streets in protest against the brutal end of the occupation and the ongoing, arbitrary violation of our right to assemble. Perhaps some of the few Occupiers not arrested joined in the rally and marches--that would make sense--but the crowd of 1,500 protesters in the streets last night exceeds the size of the Occupy Oakland encampment by 1000%. It was the sympathetic public who took to the streets and got gassed, beaten and hit with rubber bullets by police.
Oakland authorities claim their violent assault on Occupy sympathizers was in direct response to protesters purportedly throwing a volley of bottles and rocks. The body of video and reports from yesterday clearly show the huge, peaceful crowd being gassed and pushed around by police--but where is the video showing those same protesters throwing a valley of bottles and rocks at those same officers beforehand? Nowhere. The establishment media takes the word of the cops on blind faith--but we should never let that stand without challenge.
It's not that there were no problems. Video taken early in the day shows blue paint was splattered on a handful of officers who were trying to kettle a crowd of hundreds in Old Oakland, at 8th and Washington Streets. We don't know who splattered the paint, but we do know this regrettable and isolated daytime incident took place several blocks west of where cops repeatedly gassed a huge and peaceful crowd hours later in City Center.
We must tell the truth in the face of the coming onslaught of right-wing lies about what happened in Oakland--the police crushed the occupation and held its members in custody while simultaneously attacking Occupy's peaceful sympathizers in the streets.