Forum Post: YO OAKLAND: Strike to Win, Riot to Lose

As an armchair OWS supporter, I’m what I believe you Oaklanders would call “totally stoked” about this whole General Strike thing, but I want to offer a gentle reminder that it only takes one violent act to spark a police reaction, it only takes one fusillade of rubber bullets to spark a riot, and it only takes one riot to discredit a movement. As you play your patriotic parts in the Nov. 2 Strike, please remember that fringe elements with visions of People’s Revolutions are all too willing to throw rocks at cops to drag everyone into a confrontation; Chief Howard Jordan may or may not be above infiltrating a mass protest, but remember there are people out there who are willing to fulfill their roles as “job creators” by paying agents provocateurs, and plenty more Foxwashed wingnuts capable of anything; remember that when civilians outnumber police over 100-to-1 some people stop caring about protesting injustice and starting caring about correcting it directly by smashing open store windows.

Do. Not. Let. This. Happen.

After last week, the OPD are wary about taking any direct action that could be seen as heavy-handed – they’re going to be as peaceful as you are, and if they see violent agitators being opposed from within they very probably won’t break out the tear gas again. The statement the OPOA just released reveals the philosophical tension that will be roiling in every OPD officer’s belly Wednesday, and even those that aren’t morally conflicted by all this are still going to be “confused” by it, a state that doesn’t lend itself to beanbaging angry but peaceful protestors. If you let the black bloc throw a trash can through a Starbucks, though? That’s going to provoke a response. If someone starts hurling so much as cotton swabs at a police line? OWS may lose its reputation as a peaceful phenomenon. And if you, (G)od help us, see a few hundred thousand people standing beside you and decide This Is It and try to forcefully shut down Oakland’s banking industry, drag some known oligarchs into the street, etc.? Your city (and perhaps America’s future) will burn. The only people who insist OWS is moving too slowly are people who want to see it fail. OWS needs visibility right now, but the kind you get by petitioning governments, not overthrowing them.

Anyone fomenting violence is fomenting action AGAINST the Occupy movement.

Anyone instigating violence against police or other authority figures should NOT be given the freedom to pull the entire city (or movement) into chaos.

Anyone resorting to looting or defacement of public property needs to be instantly confronted by EVERYONE in the vicinity, and if the inciter in question won’t listen to reason he or she needs to be tackled and pigpiled while the whole lot of you shout for the police.

Sometimes the only way to win is to refuse to fight, to restructure the rules of the game instead of playing directly into it. Don’t let large or even small-scale violence in Oakland be the quippy news story tomorrow; let it be the idea that shockingly large multitudes of people with very real grievances can, in fact, refrain from doing anything more shocking than voicing them peacefully. Hundreds arrested, heads bashed by truncheons and “less-than-lethal” projectiles, “Occupy or Anarchy?” - that will all play directly into the hands of your detractors; but half the city of Oakland filling the streets, exercising the collective right to be pissed off without giving even the trigger-happiest cop a reason to escalate? The poor pundits won’t know what to do with you.

Be safe out there everyone, protesters and strikers and cops alike!