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Oakland Mayor Jean Quan (photo: dougsmi/flickr)
On Thursday, April 19, I attended a meeting sponsored by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) with our new police chief, Howard Jordan, leading the meeting and Mayor Jean Quan attending. The agenda was all about crime and the strategies and resources the OPD is using to address it. I went to the meeting with a question for Mayor Quan, to ask what her plans were for OO this year if OO sets up another encampment. I didn’t get to ask my question during the meeting but was able to have a 5-minute discussion with her afterwards.
Mayor Quan made it clear to me that she will not allow OO to set up again. She cited a number of reasons why things went south last year and she made it very clear that under no circumstances would she allow an overnight encampment this year.
I began the conversation trying to leverage off a couple of things that she had brought up during her part of the meeting, i.e., limited resources (mostly money) and patterns (of crime over time). I brought up how over time, the last 10 years certainly, there have been fewer resources largely through actions at the federal and state level. I’m sure I threw in something about economic inequality and the mantra of austerity and how this was a pattern that is now clearly evident.
She placed the economic policy blame at the federal level on the Republicans, “not Barack”. At the state level, she placed the “mess there” on former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. I said I thought both parties were complicit at the national level (to which she shook her head no) and did not disagree with her regarding the state level. In any event, I could see this was not a good segue into Occupy, so I just asked the question:
“Given that last year, the Occupy movement was the only force to shift the national conversation from austerity to economic inequality, what are your plans for OO this year, should they set up again.”
She said that OO had too many anarchists there who had caused property damage and great economic loss to the City, especially Chinatown (which is just a few blocks south of where the encampment had been). She said Chinatown’s business had been down 40% from the year before. She said that the City had lost one major business (“a renter”, I believe she put it) and she was just able to save another large company (Clorox) from leaving. She said that OO had been able to effect the national conversation only during a period of 10 days. She cited the General Assembly’s failure to agree on non-violence as a significant position. She cited the leaderless nature of OO as being a big problem, and referring to NYC’s Occupy, indicated she was somewhat envious of Mayor Bloomberg, who had been able to have some sort of dialog. She pointed out that a wealthy Oaklander had offered to house the entire OO but had been turned down. She also brought up there was significant drug dealing (and use) going on, as well as a rape and a murder. When I said that the murder was outside of the encampment, she was vigorous in saying that it was because of the drug dealing. And she also brought up the mentally ill and homeless who “were brought” to the encampment. Finally, she related how her daughter had been initially part of (or maybe supportive of, I’m not sure) of OO at first, but left because of the anarchists’ actions. And she added that many people had left the encampment after the initial few weeks because of the dangers and anarchy.
I asked if she was willing to reconsider her position if OO were to achieve a consensus on non-violent protest and perhaps accommodate some other concerns of hers. She made it clear the answer was no. She also made it clear that it would be fine to protest, but not as an encampment – “up to 9pm every day if they want”.
One area where she totally lost me was on groups currently organizing and taking actions, e.g., helping those being foreclosed on. She mentioned names and places that were unfamiliar to me. I thought she was saying that some OO people had moved on to these efforts, but in retrospect, I think she was referring to groups that existed before. She did, after all, quote someone twice who had told her “I was here before Occupy and I’ll be here after”.
During the course of our conversation, she became more spirited and heated, this obviously being a sore point for her, and she acknowledged to me that she was indeed somewhat inflamed by this topic/conversation. I told her I suspected beforehand that might be the case. On a side note, a person at the entrance to the building had a recall-the-mayor petition for people to sign.
I’m trying my best to recall what she said. When I got to the meeting I thought “damn, I should have brought my recorder”. As I type, I can feel many of the details dripping out of my brain.
I know most here (myself included) will have opinions quite the opposite of what Mayor Quan expressed. But my two takeaways from this discussion are 1) there is no chance of another Occupy Oakland this year, like last year’s, and 2) binding consensual non-violence has got to be the way to go (here and elsewhere) for any near-term efforts.
34 Comments
Thanks for speaking with Mayor Quan, Louis. I spoke to her once and found her to be a rude, imperious liar.
So she really thinks she’s in charge of Occupy Oakland’s future? That is rich. I see that she continues to lie and revise history in her favor.
As for your takeaways: do you mean to say that those are what you took to be Mayor Quan’s opinions or edicts or whatever? The reason I ask is that (1) is not up to Mayor Quan and (2) is impossible, IMHO. Perhaps if OPD signed a binding non-violence oath of some sort, that might inspire some faction of OO to do the same. But even if a majority of OO consensed at a GA to be non-violent, there is no way to make such a resolution binding on every member of the public (which theoretically is the potential pool of OO members). I am not arguing in favor of violence, but let me use myself as an example. I will yell at the cops. Is that violent? Would it be violent if someone were to try to physically stop me from yelling at cops? I won’t tag a building or break a window, but I won’t physically restrain someone else who is doing so – because that is something I do consider to be violent. So I don’t know how we have a binding consensus to be non-violent when all of us can’t even agree on exactly what that means.
I fear that all Mayor Quan has done by making these ridiculous statements is to issue a challenge. In what Bizarro World do we accept that protest must be sanctioned by the state?
Oh, recommended, of course!
Quan is a typical office holder. They’re very much cut from the same cloth. I only knew one exception and he didn’t win election. People vote for candidates who are sure of themselves. In any field, people who get up the ladder have that I-know-what-I’m-doing air. They often do not, but they believe they do and that’s what attracts people to them. One of those human emotional hooks that can serve us badly. It’s such as strong attraction we won’t admit we’ve been had and our leaders are dimwits with conceit in place of understanding.
Occupy must be working. They are so frightened of it.
Agreed.
diary recc’d.
Recc’ed
Not Barack indeed. Rocky Anderson in ’12.
Thanks for this report. Sounds like Chinatown businesses and corporations threatening to leave drove her decision-making — not to mention the national conversation among mayors and police chiefs that not doubt Bloomberg and Kelly dominated with the assistance of PERF and the US Conference of Mayors.
Mayor Quan seems to have personalized the situation and is frozen now into opposition. That means that the politically expedient tactic of a kinder, gentler OPD is not going to happen IMO.
Excellent report. Rec’d.
Which is all the more reason for OO to reappear, not to mention other cities. It is driving these mayors up a wall. Lets face it. Mayors,except in rare cases like Bernie Sanders(remember, he was mayor of Burlington, VT, once!!) are creatures of the business community. So of course they hate Occupy. Which means the mayors need to be exposed for the “Bull” Connor like bullies they are.
If we have to ask permission from them to dissent then we might as well forget it…thats all over. they called its bluff. hopefully planning is being done on the next move
Let’s face it if they can’t appropriate and subvert the movement then they intend to destroy it.
Is this the end of the movement?
Let’s face it… a successful OWS will destroy the Democratic Party.
The sooner the better.
Short version : Authoritarians feel threatened by anarchy.
The beginning is near….
Mayor Quan is not a problem because she’s “da’ man” or is in bed with the Chinatown (you mean “Chinese” of course) Restaurant owners and corporations: it’s simply that she’s incompetent to serve as mayor. As such, it’s best for OO to simply ignore her (although having her melt down like this is great for the recall), and whining about her “not letting” OO do its thing is irrelevant and takes away from some of the things she’s said, that if it came from a different mouth, we’d think about listening.
Violence at OO is 1) a huge obstacle to promoting the goals of Occupy, and 2) unfortunately pointed to by most of the current OO participants as either an “essential tool that we can’t give up or they will win” (a direct quote from a participant I had an argument with), or something that we can’t/won’t/shouldn’t do something about because we can’t define it and anyway it’s justified because the OPD are violent. This strong tolerance for violence is not only getting the general public up in arms, it’s keeping progressives who are an inch to the right of the Trotskyite Monkeywrenchers from participating anymore. Saying that this attitude is entirely due to the “biased corporate-controlled media” is laughable to those of us who’ve continued to work, walk the streets and patronize the businesses in downtown Oakland. You do it everyday and you know you’re better off staying (depending on the day) east of 21st or off Telegraph or Broadway. But there are days when all of a sudden it’s
take over“escape into” the YMCA (23rd & Bway), “because the police started attacking us!”: of course absolutely *nothing* the OO participants did could have caused it! Never! It’s completely unprovoked police brutality because all cops are Rush Limbaugh disciples!It’s important to note that this kind of attitude is a loud condemnation of the Davis Occupiers as being fools or maybe even harming the cause because they just “sit there”. There’ve been quite a few people in the Occupy movement (unfortunately not in Oakland) who’ve made the comment “Who knew you could freak out the establishment so much BY JUST SITTING THERE.” And indeed that is exactly the power of Occupy.
Of course I’m quite the reactionary because I actually think it’s not a bad idea to do a “7am-9pm Occupy”: if that were the standard operating procedure for the movement, we’d have Occupiers in downtown Danville and Los Altos. I’ve been told though that if the movement ever becomes mainstream, that that’s the end of it, and that I’m foolish to want as many people as possible to join in.
Oakland may have gotten the air time in the mainstream media, but it just reinforced the Establishment’s preferred rendering *because* of the inability of the GA to renounce violence and giving the OPD a big fat excuse to be the thugs they have the tendency to be. Take away that excuse, and maybe, just maybe, OO can do some good.
Terrible analysis capped off by the hilarious sentence “binding consensual non-violence.” Come on FDL editors.
Justa note – there is no “editing” going on of reader diaries m’dear.
I figured that, but was not aware how a diary makes it into my regular FDL rss feed without some kind of editorial promotion. Is it a comment threshold?
Does anyone know the violence advocates/agitators personally well enough to know that they’re not professional agents? Sounds suspiciously like a put up job.
That’s one of the things about these supposed “violence advocates,” no one knows who they are because no one can actually concretely point to any specific instance of rhetorical “violence advocacy”. And when did the term agitator start to be used in this fashion by self-identified leftists?
Carol, I was thinking about you when I wrote this because you know so much better than I what it was like on the ground and overnight. Yes to your question – I think that at some point she changed her mind, whether through persuasion or whatever, and this is her stand. It IS somewhat imperious, and her tone conveyed that, almost as though she was saying “I’m not gonna allow this in MY backyard (or front lawn)”. Another thing she mentioned (that I didn’t report) was that she had been in contact with other mayors. This is something we already know, but the fact that she mentioned it tells me that this is part of her rationale, that everyone (PTB) agrees this can’t be tolerated.
On the issue of non-violence, my personal opinion is that Occupy in general has to be seen as non-violent by the 99%. Though the media will, of course, focus on any violence, we need to do the best we can not to feed that perception. Perception is everything. I would say violence is breaking or damaging things. Speaking is not violence. But I would also refrain from verbal taunting of the police, mostly because I’m a wuss but also because I think it’s counter-productive.
Tarheel, I think what you said is right on target. Thanks for summarizing in your usual insightful way.
I use it that way, always have. I’m a little to the left of as left as the political spectrum goes. I didn’t know there was an agitator protocol.
Buffy writes about having the violence argument with an advocate. So I guess the next question is who is Buffy. We could go on like this but the point is we don’t know up close and personal, for a fact.
Actually, I tried to keep away from analysis, more of a report on what she said. I agree “binding consensual” is somewhat redundant, but I don’t see how “binding consensual non-violence” is hilarious.
Buffy, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I think the PTB have drawn a line in the sand. The power of Occupy has been the 24/7 encampments. That power is greatly diluted when it’s xx a.m. to yy p.m. The vibrant “Renaissance Fair” type atmosphere I saw at OO, with booths set up and the like would be very difficult to set up and tear down on a daily basis. I really don’t know what would be effective if Occupy has to work within the parameters that the PTB set, parameters that would likely change (become more restrictive) if the protest makes a dent in the power structure.
On a side note, one thing the Mayor did not mention was the excuse of the mess, rats, health issues, etc, that was widely used as an excuse at the time, and which is often cited by the power structure in these types of encounters. Maybe she just forget that particular talking point.
Actually, someone in FDL added the picture of Mayor Quan. No content was changed. And thanks to whoever added the picture
My point is not to enforce some kind of protocol but rather to remind those that identify as leftists that historically the term agitator has been used in a somewhat derogatory manner to refer to the individuals with which they broadly share political affinities: unionists, socialists, feminists, racial justice advocates and the like. Take for instance the Oakland Police Department and local media calling citizens and journalists arrested on J28 “outside” or “professional” agitators even if they were only from Berkeley. Rhetoric is not a triviality.
As for “binding consensual non-violence” I have a few questions. Does my ability to provide or withdraw consent end once I have taken the Solemn Vow of Non-Violence? If not, what is the nature of this bind? If so, what does that mean for the concept of consent if once I have given it it is no longer mine to give or withdraw? Consent, especially as related to a political movement, is dynamic, not something that can be done once-and-for-all or that one can be bound to in perpetuum. Indeed, to do so is essentially to invalidate the very concept.
Finally, as for analysis, you are right, there is not much of it. My main qualm is this:
That may be an arguable position, but it is not something your reportage would suggest.
Thanks for clarifying, Louis, and for the added info about Quan.
I agree that breaking things and yelling at cops are counterproductive. But I’d like to see more people get over their kneejerk reactions that cops somehow automatically deserve respect. Not talking about you, just the general perception that people who have chosen a profession that gives them license to hit teenage girls with sticks should be treated any different than other bullies – just because they have a uniform and a gun and the power of the state behind them.
One thing the mayor said that I didn’t report was that there were people from Danville, Pittsburg, etc. I said “Well yeah, from the greater Oakland area” and she said “from the suburbs”. I really didn’t get her point on that, unless that was part of the “outside agitator” meme. It’s laughable, in a morbid way, to think that a living person who lives next door to Oakland should be painted as an outside agitor, while a corporate person from out-of-state is given a free pass. Such is where we’ve been and where we are. It sucks.
Consensus is, by its nature, a binding agreement for all. We speak of consensus, but actually, I think Occupy has been more of a majority-rule operation, i.e., things are voted on. The General Assembly has been the place to bring up issues for vote. I don’t see why a vote for non-violence can’t be done on one day and a vote to rescind that done another day.
My apologies if my “takeaways” tacked on the very end implied analysis. You’re absolutely right. It was my opinion. An arguable one. Perhaps I threw that in to help further discussion, such as the one last week about black bloc tactics.
I still maintain that there will always be some slippage and complication just by going from consent to consensus (an unavoidable problem of collective action) but I do agree with the above quote as one possible, though necessarily tenuous solution.
Sorry for the snark. It wasn’t necessary.
I meant agitators as I used it. If they are professionals, they certainly are agitators, aren’t they.
Learning to read will surely benefit you in today’s economy.
Snotty.