The Occupy Oakland crowd, having been evicted from downtown, has now ceased its wanderings and have pitched their tents in a vacant lot at 18th & Linden. Oaklanders, consider yourselves re-occupied!
Occupy Oakland protesters have moved onto a vacant Oakland lot they say is being foreclosed.
Late Monday night the group announced in a text message that they had moved to a private lot at the corner of 18th and Linden streets in West Oakland.
About 10 tents and 30 protesters were set up on the lot Monday night. The nearby two-story home is being foreclosed and the protesters told the Associated Press they have permission to be on the lot.
The camp went up less than a day after roughly 100 protesters were moved out of the final Occupy Oakland camp. Days after clearing out Frank Ogawa Plaza and another vacant lot, police told campers at Oakland's Snow Park early Monday that they too had to move out.
For those who don't know, Oakland is actually a pretty sizable city, and 18th & Linden is a very obscure corner of it. When the Occupiers were in front of City Hall, they could credibly claim to be at the center of things, but now they are simply squatting in a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood. I'm sure the new Occupiees are thrilled.
(btw, have to love how the reporters working this story continue to present the Occupiers in the best possible light. With one breath they say the vacant lot is "being foreclosed," but with another they only say a near-by house is being foreclosed. Well, which is it?)
All of these machinations underscore how bogus this revolutionary movement is. They're willing to squat on property that doesn't belong to them. They are willing to be arrested for their trouble, but only if the arrests are of the catch-and-release variety that are common in the wake of political protests. But, I'm not seeing any real "To The Finland Station"-style commitment from these guys. Want to watch an Occupier move like lightning? Tell him that the police will seize his $400 tent if he doesn't move it in 5 minutes. How quickly "Hell No, We Won't Go" turns to "Run Away! Run Away!"
If the United States were so awful that it deserves to be Occupied, then nothing should be stopping these guys. That's really the essence of revolution. The Occupiers will respond that they are just behaving themselves to appeal to political moderates, but that only underscores their lameness. They are self-proclaimed revolutionary movement that hides its true aims, and avoids real confrontation with their alleged oppressors. Let them have their "foreclosed" vacant lot. It's all they can manage.
The Occupiers are not occupying "vacant lots" they are occupying actual foreclosed houses. That sounds cool to me.
ReplyDeleteBut if you can't attack the message the you have to attack the messenger.