Comment Archives: stories: News: Seven Days
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
All occupiers and citizens are invited to "Occupy the 2012 Election: Let's Govern", a public forum at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, on Saturday, Feb. 18, 10:30-12 Noon. The forum will have speakers presenting scenarios for governing by electing Justice or other party candidates in 2012. Rocky Anderson, Justice Party Candidate for President will speak, along with greens, peace and freedom, and groups from the community-- occupy, labor, immigrants, students, seniors, environment, and peace and justice groups-- who want the election to further their goals of economic, environmental and social justice. For example, end the wars of illegal occupation, drone strikes on innocents, cuts to benefits, creation of green jobs, etc. Music, youth performance, refreshments. Get in touch: Cynthia, Justice Party USA Western States Coordinator, 510-333-6097 cynthiap.justice@gmail.com
"Democracy is not something you believe in or hang your hat on, but something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy stumbles and falls. If you participate, the future is yours." Abbie Hoffman
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
This comment was removed because it violates our policy against anonymous comments. It will be reposted if the commenter chooses to use his or her real name.
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
This comment was removed because it violates our policy against anonymous comments. It will be reposted if the commenter chooses to use his or her real name.
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
This comment was removed because it violates our policy against anonymous comments. It will be reposted if the commenter chooses to use his or her real name.
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
I don't know how long you have lived in Oakland, Chris and Alan, but I have been here a very long time. This is just the latest version of a vicious cycle between provocation of the cops and overreaction by the cops. The people who are most affected are neither the would-be politicos nor the police, but rather the minorities and poor folks who are most often victimized. These are people who can't raise bail, don't have lawyers to back them up, and are not treated with sufficient respect by the system. But the overly-amped wannabe activists don't have enough understanding of Oakland history or of the nuances of conflict to be able to tell when they are doing something effective and when they are just making things worse for people who don't deserve it. Both the police AND the self-styled militants of Occupy are engaged in a sideshow that will not further the goals I thought the Occupy movement was striving for. Instead, the police are getting more entrenched and are finding justification for their overreactions, and the vandalism and corollary damage continue.
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
Robert, As usual, this is superb, in-depth reporting. I would, however, quibble with your chronology. In October, Angela Woodall, in writing about one of the first Occupy Oakland meetings in Mosswood Park, noted the presence of the very same folks she had previously seen rioting in the Oscar Grant protests. It was there that some 100 participants initially adopted a "diversity of tactics" resolution.
The encampment in Frank Ogawa Plaza was on a collision-course from Day One due to the core group's distrust of the police and anyone associated with City Hall. Council Member Desley Brooks slept in a tent for the first two nights until she saw the hand-writing or more appropriately "graffiti" on the wall. Now, she's one of Occupy Oakland's harshest critics--along with the overwhelming majority of Oakland's progressive/activist community.
The idiocy of their "diversity of tactics" stance is that it ultimately excludes anyone unwilling to associate themselves with a movement that tacitly endorses vandalism and other forms of violence. And, in Oakland, that is the 99%.
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
FACT CHECK: "The Black Bloc brethren," writes Robert Gammon, "appear to be mostly young white men" who "reignited early this year with 'Fuck the Police' marches." In truth, Occupy Oakland's Tactical Action Committee, which conducts weekly FTP protests, is dominated by young African-American men who model themselves after the Black Panthers.
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
This article is so absurd, I don't even know where to begin, but I'll start by pointing out that no one has ever wanted to be tear-gassed and fired upon with riot weapons. So your little phrase of "the black bloc got what it wanted" (and can you place stop capitalizing "black "bloc, considering it's not an actual group, but rather a tactic shared by random individuals) is a nasty little blame game.
Also, how is it that you are privy to the black bloc participants' home addresses and thus can confidently say that most of them don't live in Oakland?
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blo…
Help Keep the OAKLAND Raiders in Oakland! Vote NO in LA Times Poll asking if the Oakland Raiders should move to L.A.? Let’s SHUTDOWN the LA Times & espnLA’s attempt to lure the Raiders away from Oakland ! Vote NO & send this link to another REAL OAKLAND RAIDERS FAN!
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
The Raiders can play at a Oakland H.S. and I'd still watch. But a new stadium would be nice!!
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
Funny how people say thier Diehard Raider fans, just to say I'm gonna give up on them if they dont approve this, well give up then and find another team, we dont need bandwagon fans anyway....BYE.
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
Great Idea, I am a lifelong Oakland Raider fan. Any other city does not work for me. I am not a LA Raider, Irwindale or anything else fan. At this point if Reggie does not turn this thing around and the city build a new stadium I am finally just gonna have to give up on the Raiders like they did to the Bills, Broncos, Lions & Chargers this year.
Get it together Oakland & The Raiders... "Oakland Raiders" the greatest franchise in Sports!
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
It would do wonders for the city of Oaklands image. If they lose the A's and the Raiders, the Warriors will soon follow suit. What will be left? Parking lots and empty coliseums? Monster trucks and Disney on Ice are not going to cover the maintenance costs. The city will lose jobs, tax revenue and become an even larger sh*thole than it already is. COME ON Oakland...get it done - it all ends in 2013 if you dont.
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
Pipe...meet dream.
Re: “Jerry Brown Guts Oakland”
Methinks Mr. Gammon needs a good dose of Randall O'Toole, and his book "The Vanishing Automobile and other Urban Myths."
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv24…
And for that matter, there are many progressive liberals in the EBE audience who would surely like to do away with both the U.S. military and the prison system.
Should the ACLU succeed in banishing the death penalty in favor of Life Without Parole, their plan is to immediately begin a campaign to do away with Life Without Parole (LWOP.)
Re: “Jerry Brown Guts Oakland”
Ms. Forde,
Several years ago, I wasn't particularly enamored with redevelopment either. But then as I began to study climate change issues more closely, I found the arguments put forth by many environmentalists and climate change experts convincing.
To reduce greenhouse gases, we must spur urban growth and curb suburban sprawl. The amount of energy wasted in long car commutes, on top of heating and cooling large tract houses, is unsustainable.
But how do cities like Oakland, plagued by poverty, crime, and blight, attract new development? They do it by making property attractive to developers who otherwise would build in suburbia. And the tool for making that happen has been redevelopment, whether it's for market-rate or affordable housing.
Sure, redevelopment has been abused, and it needs reforming. But lots of essential gov't programs include waste, but the answer is not to kill them. The US military and the Calif. prison system are two prime examples.
But Jerry Brown never tried to reform redevelopment. Instead, he pushed to kill it so he could use the money to close a state budget deficit. That way, he didn't have to take on the difficult task last year of trying to put a tax measure on the ballot. A classic Jerry Brown move.
But that move also undercuts Brown's self-styled image of being a green governor. Without urban growth, California likely will never meet its greenhouse-gas-reduction goals.
And without some funding mechanism, Oakland and other cities like it will have no effective way of turning around blighted areas and attracting new development -- unless the legislature figures out some sort of new plan.
Re: “Coliseum City Unveiled”
Keep the RAW (Raiders, Athletics & Warriors) in Oakland!
Re: “Jerry Brown Guts Oakland”
I’m stunned that Mr. Gammon is seemingly so compassionate towards the redevelopment agencies in his recent articles. I usually side with him on most political issues but on this one, absolutely not. Jerry Brown, as Governor, is hitting the right target in order to harness more revenue.
The City of Oakland shouldn’t have comingled redevelopment funds to pay City staffers in the first place. Again, as is so frequently seen, everyone is feeding at the redevelopment trough. Yes it’s tragic that people are losing their jobs, but what about the tragedy of the millions of mishandled and misappropriated tax dollars over the last sixty years! Not to mention neighborhoods and lives that were uprooted due to the “brainstorms” of these redevelopment agencies (again, the Fillmore District Redevelopment fiasco in San Francisco beginning in 1948 for example).
Please folks, get and read “Redevelopment-the Unknown Government” printed in 2004 by Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform. I think it can be ordered on Amazon.
Re: “Jerry Brown's Hypocrisy”
Thank you, J. Moses Ceaser, for all your hard work! Your patience and dogged determination is to be lauded. We truly look forward to The New Parkway in Oakland!
Re: “It's Time for the Black Bloc to Go Away”
(It's only 5 paragraphs so bear with me here - PLEASE!)
In the 1970s the Boston public schools remained de facto segregated. Federal Court Judge Arthur Garrity, in 1974, ordered a comprehensive plan to bus public school students from minority neighborhood schools to predominantly "white" schools and visa versa (silly expression).
Chaos erupted to the point that the Governor mobilized the National Guard to bolster the BPD and MSP in maintaining some order. What had been a political matter, with the Federal Court tired of Boston stalling, became a violent riot. So intent were the anti-busing folks that instead of using the system that at one point they were trying to tip over buses filled with kids to stop the movement. It became "THEY aren't going to come to OUR schools" etc.
It became apparent to street observers, of which I was one on assignment for the MA Nat'l Guard, that most of the violence came from those wanting violence. The Busing issue got pushed to the background. The haters, cop baiters (steel tipped darts being fired at BPD Tactical Force), and hooligans (South Bostonese at the time) made certain that there would be violent confrontations every day. Thankfully, with few exceptions, the BPD did not over-react. The protesters did, as evidenced by a Pulitzer Prize winning photo (seen in this link http://tinyurl.com/7wlexfj ). At one point about 10 "protesters" beat a man senseless with paving stones and chanted, when help arrived "Let him die" - he did later. ( http://tinyurl.com/6n5ook6 )
Occupy Oakland had laudable goals, as did the nascent OWS movement. Unlike OWS but very much like the hooligans in Boston, it seems that the 99% v 1% has disappeared. If OPD is so bad, bring a suit in Federal Court demonstrating that OPD is violating the Civil Rights of minorities and the poor - that they over-react at the least provocation, that peaceful demonstrators are being tear-gassed and beaten.
NOTHING will be accomplished by taunting the OPD until they react. It's great for the HLN folks and the "Special News Bulletin" stuff on broadcast TV, but the movement isn't about theater - it's about the basic inequality of the financial system, the economy, which has a disparate impact on the poor, the minorities, and the remnants of the middle-class. Get back to the mission of the movement. If "peaceful" confrontation, and "diversity of tactics" is the goal at least have the decency to disavow any connection with the "Occupy" movements. Better yet, if members of the movement want to be hooligans, go to the Galaxy games - then you can really shine.
Richard Isacoff
rii@isacofflaw.com