I met one small business woman, must of been 25, black woman, she had an independent gallery really near the unilateral Travellers occupation, she had artwork stolen and some it ended up at the camp, and since has gone. She represents 30 independent, emerging artists. She came to the morning meeting to beg to get the works back, she was nice, sensible, but desperate. Her business, her livelihood destroyed. She was a black Oakland hipster trying to make a living in an incredibly tough market. This is what Oakland is about
Another store, on the mainstream, acted as a quiet safe space during the demo/strike and sold coffees during the day, they where basically an important resource for the day, when many other shops closed. They have 4 designers all sharing an expensive space. They had windows smashed, and I think stuff stolen.
Another large department store, was closed for the strike, the mens warehouse, with a prominent sign "we stand with the 99%". A Tweet photo of this sign was the top tweet for nearly the entire day of the strike. They had their windows smashed (and I think, would need to verify, stuff stolen)
People went to jail, they didn't want to be involved, but they got caught in the Black Bloc black hole.
An demo/strike participant, a former Army Ranger, who runs a small business in Oakland (black, poor, hard working) runs a micro-brewery. He got beaten by cops near his house and has a damaged splean.
The mainstream media narrative is shit. But the Tweet stream and social media is actually worse. The #occupyoakland twitter tag, the website is controlled by the Black Bloc faction in OO (how many of them actually camp?)
The comments at the post fuckup meetings I went to where overwhelmingly negative about Wed's nonsense. The threads on IndyBay are overwhelmingly negative http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/04/18697383.php http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/03/18697018.php
no doubt, there is a mini-industry of OO coalition members working out how to extricate themselves from connection from the Black Bloc and OO entirely, and no doubt, MoveOn and Obama's Army are reaching out, spreading a protection umbrella
its seriously dishonest, exploitative and destructive to create a coalition based on some well publicized actions and goals, and bring in nearly all of the marginalized and civil society and then by association connect them with looting, vandalism and the militant anarchism
then, to dismiss the riot porn, vandalism, looting, as somehow justified tactical political action
already homeless and mentally ill people in the camp nearly faced violent eviction again
we are just lucky Kayvan Sabeghi and others aren't dead, these kids who think they are in the Black Bloc have no idea, they are playing with energies, cycles, technologies and forces that will simply destroy them, and bring many others into the vortex too
there is a lot of racial tension between the black community and the urban hipsters, the squatters etc and this kind of recklessness will just make it worse
and my analysis is out of touch?