Is it the 60s yet? A watershed week in review.

An early image from the Brooklyn Bridge arrests

A week ago, I was considering posting a link here with instructions about what to do if you're taken into police custody. Those grainy black-and-white photos of Vietnam-era protesters being hauled away by cops--which only recently seemed like artifacts from a distant time--had been suddenly brought back to life by the Occupy movement. As arrests of Occupy protesters mounted (the current total stands at 2885 worldwide), the images proliferating online were eerily familiar, yet somehow surreal. Impossibly sharp, flush with digital color and seeming to strain at the confines of their frames, they both echoed the iconic photos of the 60s and brought home the realities of the current struggle. One of those realities was that you could get arrested.

Now I wonder if I should be looking for information about how to protect oneself from tear gas, rubber bullets and other "less-than-lethal" weapons that comprise the riot-police arsenal. Yes, the ante was upped dramatically when police went medieval on Occupy Oakland last Tuesday. In the aftermath, a protester, former marine Scott Olsen, lies hospitalized with a brain injury and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is fighting for her political life. Despite considerable fallout from Oakland, police departments across the country stepped up crackdowns on Occupy protesters last week, raiding camps and evicting protesters. And it was hardly a kinder, gentler police presence that greeted protesters after Oakland. On Saturday, police dismantled the Occupy Denver encampment and used mace and pepper pellets to clear out occupiers. Here's some footage of the Denver incident.

The crackdown seems only to have galvanized and emboldened protesters, who are currently holding their own in battles with authorities. Last week's raids were almost invariably followed by attempts by protesters to retake lost ground, literally and figuratively, often with a measure of success. City officials--and even police--are in some cases pushing back when ordered to interfere with protesters.  A municipal judge in Nashville refused to sign arrest warrants for demonstrators taken into custody there. The mayor in Albany, NY, declined to enforce a curfew at the park where Occupy Albany has set up camp despite a request from Governor Cuomo to do so. A few police officers in Denver reportedly refused to participate in that raid because they were disturbed by the level of force that was used.

Meanwhile, Mayor Quan of Oakland has invited Occupy Oakland back to its camp, presumably in an attempt to repair her image, but possibly because she decided to reread the part in the Constitution about free speech. A major union has joined Occupy Oakland's call for a general strike in the city on Wednesday. Oh, and did I mention that pro-democracy activists in Egypt marched on Saturday in support of Occupy Oakland? 
 

The thought of Egyptian freedom fighters marching in solidarity with Americans struggling to end corporate despotism is powerful for many reasons, not the least of which is that it begs the question: Is this our revolution? Certainly we haven't seen anything remotely like Occupy Wall Street since Vietnam. More than a few people told me that the events in Oakland reminded them of the 1970 National Guard massacre of student anti-war protesters at Kent State University. Thankfully, no one died in Oakland and Scott Olsen will likely recover fully from his injuries. But I thought about Kent State, too. Watching video footage of protesters gathered around Olsen's motionless body after he was hit by a police projectile, I couldn't help but recall the famous photo (seen above) showing 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling next to the body of Jeffrey Miller, one of the students killed at Kent State.

In the end, I think Occupy Wall Street will eclipse the Vietnam movement, but not for violence. There is a strong commitment to non-violence from within the movement and during the past week there were there were repeated calls for protesters to remain peaceful. OWS will eclipse Vietnam because its issues are bigger and broader than any single war. The infiltration of the government by corporate money--one feature of which is a war economy--is like a creeping weed that has grown roots in major American institutions, causing the very foundations of our democracy to crumble. If this movement becomes as big as the issues it encompasses, this will be the revolution that some people are talking about. And Oakland will stand as its Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Oakland: A Blow-by-Blow

It started in the wee hours of the morning on October 25 when officers in riot gear summarily trashed the Occupy encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza near Oakland City Hall and evicted protesters using tear gas.  Mayor Jean Quan said the raid was necessitated by safety and sanitation concerns, commending the Chief of Police Howard Jordan for using "peaceful" means to "close the encampment." There ensued a sort of rolling protest, with marchers attempting to return to City Hall and retake the plaza, while police cut them off at every turn. Public transportation was shut down to prevent more people from joining the march. The demonstrators continued on, continually changing their course and destination to shake police.

Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, seriously injured by Oakland police

Late that evening they converged back at City Hall. More than a thousand  demonstrators, unarmed and predominantly peaceful, were met by hundreds of police--not just from Oakland, but from some 15 surrounding communities--firing tear-gas grenades and bean-bag rounds. Police say that was the extent of their artillary, but they have been variously accused of deploying flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets and wooden-dowel projectiles, all of which are technically non-lethal but potentially very dangerous. Police initially claimed that no one was injured in the melee and continue to insist they used the least force necessary.

In fact, many people were bruised and bloodied by police tactics that night. The most visible face of the injured is 24-year old marine veteran Scott Oldsen, whose skull was fractured. While now alert and cognizant (he was upgraded from critical to fair condition on Thursday), he is so far unable to speak. The injury is believed to have affected the area of his brain controlling speech. Both the Occupation Wall Street movement and the veterans community have rallied around Olsen.