#OWS update: the so happy together in Oakland edition

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Awwww... Oakland mayor not too hot on Occupy anymore.

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This past fall, while encouraging city workers to take time off work to join the Occupy protests, Oakland mayor, Jean Quan had this to say with respect to the Occupy movement:

“The highway patrol and other forces came and ensured that it was peaceful tonight. We will act if we need to tonight to maintain safety. But it looks like this was a good day for the demonstrators and for the 99% movement.”

As the Occupy movement showed it's true colors over the weekend by trashing Oakland's City Hall, Mayor Quan is changing her tune.

Oakland officials assessed damage to City Hall caused by Occupy protesters while leaders of the movement claimed Sunday that police acted illegally in arresting hundreds of demonstrators and could face a lawsuit.

Mayor Jean Quan was among those inspecting damage caused after dozens of people broke into City Hall on Saturday, smashing glass display cases, spray-painting graffiti, and burning an American flag.

That break-in culminated a day of clashes between protesters and police. Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said nearly 400 people were arrested on charges ranging from failure to disperse and vandalism. At least three officers and one protester were injured.

In a news release Sunday, the Occupy Oakland Media Committee criticized the police conduct, saying that most of the arrests were made illegally because police failed to allow protesters to disperse.

"Contrary to their own policy, the OPD gave no option of leaving or instruction on how to depart. These arrests are completely illegal, and this will probably result in another class action lawsuit against the OPD, who have already cost Oakland $58 million in lawsuits over the past 10 years," the release said.

The scene around City Hall was mostly quiet Sunday morning, and it was unclear whether protesters would mount another large-scale demonstration.

Dozens of officers remained present inside and outside City Hall after maintaining guard overnight. Occupy Oakland demonstrators

broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.

Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, on Saturday called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground."

"People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior," Quan said.

On Sunday, Quan said she is tired of the protesters' repeated actions.

"I'm mostly frustrated because it appears that most of them constantly come from outside of Oakland," Quan said. "I think a lot of the young people who come to these demonstrations think they're being revolutionary when they're really hurting the people they claim that they are representing."

(italics, ours)



Glad she's clued-in to what we've known all along. But cry us a river, Mayor, as instead of taking a hard line against these hoods from the start, you instead, effectively endorsed a movement that everyone with the slightest shred of common sense knew would ultimately turn violent. Just call it a classic case of enabling bad behavior.





And speaking of hurting those you claim to be representing:

Oakland officials said the massive Occupy Oakland demonstration on Saturday diverted police resources from calls elsewhere in the city, stymieing the Police Department's crime-fighting efforts.

An estimated 400 demonstrators were arrested during the protest, with some activists breaking into City Hall and vandalizing it.

Mayor Jean Quan condemned the local movement's tactics as "a constant provocation of the police with a lot of violence toward them" and said the demonstrations were draining scarce resources from an already financially-strapped city.

Oakland has logged five homicides since Friday, and Police Chief Howard Jordan told the Los Angeles Times that the law enforcement "personnel and resources dedicated to Occupy reduce our ability to focus on public safety priorities." [Updated at 9:03 a.m.: It is unclear exactly how many calls were delayed because of the protests.]

Oakland officials will seek monetary damages from protesters, Quan said. In addition, the mayor said she would pursue "restorative justice" by asking that those deemed guilty be put to work picking up garbage and removing graffiti in East Oakland.

Restorative justice..? Perfect. Remember: "Whenever there was an adjective added to an important value-based noun, there was an agenda."

25 years, a few showers and perhaps a mortgage are all that really separates your typical Oakland Occupier and Oakland's political class as represented by Mayor Quan. Far from demanding change or reform, these two sets of redistributionist statists are the staunchest defenders of the status quo and really do deserve each other.


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Addendum #1: Here's some more of that new civility we've been hearing so much about:

Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week.

About two-dozen members of Occupy Providence hiked from Burnside Park to the 39th Annual Pro-Life State House Rally organized by the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee on Thursday.

The pro-life organization’s executive director, Barth E. Bracy, told LifeSiteNews.com that, near the end of the rally, the Occupiers “strategically fanned out with military precision.”

That’s when they “started showering condoms down on some of the girls from a Catholic high school.”

They gathered around speakers at the podium, shouting them down or otherwise jostling them and members of the audience.

We're confused. All this time we thought it was about "fairness", income inequality and getting someone else to pay down their student loan debt... all pretty straight-forward stuff, right? Now, they're getting into social issues like denying others their first amendment rights via Stalinist thug tactics?

As the tea party has struggled with how to take on or not take on social issues, it would appear that a similar debate needs to take place within the Occupy ranks with respect to general douche-baggery but we think we know what side has completely won-out, already.