OCCUPY WALL STREET

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I'm not too impressed with breaking into vacant buildings and running through the YMCA to avoid arrest. I am also not too impressed with just marching around in the street.

Civil disobedience has to have a purpose or it's just mayhem in the streets. I have not been involved in any protests the last couple of months and I'm just not sure what is going on now has any purpose. I said along time ago that phase 2 needs to begin. Movements need a purpose and a goal to actually effect change.

As to flag burning. I will never condemn anyone for burning any flag, however it is their right to do so. My take on flag burning is this: Burning a flag is symbolic and indicates wanting destruction of what the flag represents. Back in my HIV/AIDS protest days I always tried to point out a couple of things. Don't burn the US flag. Our anger was not at the country, but at the President (Reagan at first). We should have been burning the Presidential Flag and the flags of the Senate and House.

Thank you! I know I am having some trouble being from this area and experiencing very contrasting Occupy protests around us (SF, our northern CA UC campuses including Cal Berkeley & UC Davis) and what is going on in Oakland- and judgements from outside of our geographical area. I also think there is a core Occupy group in Oakland that does represent what is positive about the movement. But many have left to join other cities in the movement due to how destructive and yes, dangerous, Oakland has become.

This bothers me a lot because as an East Bay Area resident, I have always felt that Oakland itself always gets demonized no matter what is going on. And it has some of the strongest grass roots/community organizing history in CA and the nation when we look at the history of social movements.

Occupy Oakland has hurt important segments of the 98% in ways I just can't get behind. It is taking away the very resources that so many people in Oakland need. And there is a very vibrant African American (that is quite young) business community in Oakland that have struggled and fought to re-vitalize areas of the city in order to build stronger foundations for their youth that I see being victimized by the antics of OO. It hurts to see this and their pain.

I agree with what you say about flag burning, too.