Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
I know that many of you were worried so I am glad to see this young man making a slow, but steady, recovery.
Hearing him struggle to speak is somewhat heartrending, especially since what happened to him was completely unnecessary and an indication that some places in this country are little better than a third world dictatorship.
Hundreds of protesters gathered at the intersection of Broadway and 14th Street overnight in anticipation of the eviction, and of many tents remained in the camp when lines of police in riot gear began moving in.
However, dozens of occupiers had moved their tents out of the plaza as the city issued repeated eviction notices over the weekend, and rumors of an early morning raid intensified.
"It feels pretty sad because we built a community here, and now they can just come and destroy it," said Lara Bitar, 28, who helped collapse three of the camp's four tents early Monday morning. "At the same time, this movement is about more than just the space here."
Many feared a repetition of the nighttime clashes that followed an early morning takedown of the camp on Oct. 25. But this action has so far remained peaceful, with police clearing tents and protesters engaged in civil disobedience submitting to arrest.
Mayor Jean Quan, the City Council and the local business community have made numerous pleas to the campers in recent weeks to leave the plaza. These pleas intensified last week after a young man was shot and killed just outside the camp's borders.
The Mayor has been looking for an excuse, and the shooting last Friday provided the shakiest of reasons to move forward and dismantle the camps by taking down their tents and essentially evicting them from the plaza. Of course the fear is that OTHER mayors will follow Quan's lead and invent their OWN reasons to evict these protestors from their camps and start the campaign to quiet their protests before it can have a serious affect on the corporations and banks that they are targeting.
Fortunately not ALL of the news coming out about the Oakland protests is all bad news, the marine who was famously injured by Oakland police has been released from the hospital:
Former U.S. Marine Scott Olsen, whose injury during clashes between Oakland police and protesters last month galvanized the Anti-Wall Street movement, has been released from the hospital, friends said on Friday.
"He is out of the hospital as of yesterday or today, thank goodness," Adele Carpenter, 29, told Reuters.
Occupy Oakland organizers say Olsen, 24, was hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by police during a downtown Oakland confrontation on October 25. He was admitted to a local hospital in critical condition.
More than two weeks later, Olsen was released from inpatient care in time to celebrate Veteran's Day, Carpenter wrote in a blog post on a website for the group Veterans for Peace.
The Iraq veteran was "still struggling with speech, but is attempting conversations without having the writing instrument out," on which he had been relying to communicate, Carpenter said in the blog post.
It seems that Oakland has always been the least hospitable city toward this movement, so it is no surprise that they are the first to take such drastic measures. The question is will this lead to more mayors, of more cities, following suit, or is this an isolated circumstance?
Update: It appears that Mayor Quan's legal adviser does not agree with her decision to dismantle this camp, and has resigned in protest:
Mayor Jean Quan's chief legal adviser resigned early this morning after what he called a "tragically unnecessary" police raid of the Occupy Oakland camp.
Dan Siegel, a civil rights attorney and one of Oakland's most active and vocal police critics, said the city should have done more to work with campers before sending in police.
"The city sent police to evict this camp, arrest people and potentially hurt them," Siegel said. "Obviously, we're not on the same page. It's an amazing show of force to move tents from a public place."
Well isn't THAT interesting?
I guess when you spend your life fighting for civil rights it makes it somewhat difficult to stand by while they are being trampled.
More then 30 students were arrested Wednesday on the campus of UC Berkeley after UCPD moved to take control of an area where students were trying to set up an encampment, reports Associated Press.
The students were part of a group of hundreds of protesters who began gathering in "Sproul Plaza on Bancroft Street and Telegraph Avenue chanting “No cuts, no fees, education must be free,” and “The people, united, will never be divided,” while holding signs bearing slogans such as “Defend public education now,” according to the Daily Californian, who live-blogged the event.
Campus police, assisted by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and the Oakland Police Department, responded to the attempted take-over by the students in riot gear. Armed with batons and carrying zip-tie handcuffs the police attempted to establish a perimeter around the encampment. Dispersal orders were issued to protesters who responded with "will not be moved."
Students, who were in violation of an order by vice chancellor for student affairs, Harry Le Grande, that said demonstrators could stay overnight in the plaza and could have canopies, but were not permitted to have tents or sleeping bags, refused to leave when ordered. Le Grange had also banned cooking, make fires and sleeping during the Occupy protest.
Police responded to the refusal to disperse in a violent skirmish with demonstrators. Student's were struck with batons while camera's caught the disturbing scene on film.
Watching this video is incredibly disturbing and, though I understand that the police were following orders, I have no idea how that level of aggression can be justified against an unarmed, peaceful gathering of students.
Something about this taking place on the UC Berkeley campus, a campus made famous for protesting the Vietnam war, makes it seem even more egregious to me.
And this is not the only place in California that is doing an extremely poor job of dealing with the protests.
Okay this is exactly what I have been worried about.
If this becomes the norm, or if it gives the mainstream media the excuse they need to simply write these protesters off as hooligans, than the movement is doomed.
At this point I do not know what the circumstances were that led up to these destructive and aggressive behaviors on the part of the protestors, but it is in sharp contrast to the peaceful and very appropriate attitudes we have witnessed in the recent past.
It is my hope that the protestors recognize how damaging this kind of activity will be to their cause, and take aggressive steps to curtail it in the future.
I, like many Americans, want very much to support the movement, but cannot condone, nor excuse, vandalism and violence toward the police or innocent bystanders.
Although most of the marches were peaceful, at least three banks – Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America – were damaged during the day, with windows smashed and cash machines put out of service.
Much talk in the camp was of a rogue group having committed the acts, without the backing of most protesters.
Bubb Rubb, from Oakland, was unimpressed with "these people in black clothes, with black flags".
"They bamboozled us. They wanted violence," he told the Guardian.
Many of the sites that were vandalised bore posters next to where the incident had occurred, saying it was "not the actions of the 99%".
Okay if this is accurate reporting, and I certainly believe that it is, then this needs to be spread far and wide, because I can guarantee that the images of vandalism and barricades set ablaze will be all over the mainstream media for the next several days.
