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Occupy Oakland – the Oakland Commune

By Wendi Maxwell, Guest Contributor

(Wendi Maxwell looks behind the two-dimensional news stories to find the real motivations of the California Bay Area's radicals. Maxwell is a former policy maker for California adult literacy projects.)

What if the Occupy movement is not just about holding demonstrations in public places? What if its real impact is the ability to empower and unite communities to identify their own problems, propose their own solutions, and take matters into their own hands? Meet the Oakland Commune. (Photo right:  Oakland Occupy Wall Street, hella occupy).  

 Oakland – Radical Politics

 Oakland, birthplace of the Black Panthers, has a long history of radical activism. It’s no wonder then, that the Occupy Oakland movement has a different flavor than the original Occupy Wall Street.  Occupy Oakland takes the term “occupation” literally. As an Occupy Oakland rally poster articulates:

 "We live in a world where unemployment and staggering levels of debt are the new normal, where poverty and homelessness are met by police violence and incarceration. The entire global economy is broken, and politicians in the US and elsewhere remain powerless to do anything about it. It’s time to take power into our own hands, to occupy the spaces from which we have been excluded and reclaim everything that has been stolen from us.”

Banners at Occupy Oakland say “Occupy Everything.” An occupation challenges ownership of the space involved, and by taking control of the space, changes its usage. When foreign governments occupy a country after a war, they take control of the territory and change the rules. Occupy Oakland is taking control of the public plaza next to the Oakland City Hall. (Photo left: First Amendment Torn, by David Id, IndyBay)

In two weeks, it has changed from an open plaza where downtown workers take coffee breaks and homeless people sleep at night, to a miniature city inhabited and managed by hundreds of activists. The fledgling city boasts food and shelter, childcare, discussion groups, first aid stations, and even a media room powered by bicycle-driven generators. A weekly print “zine” – The Occupation Times – is issued every week.

Oakland Commune

The newly named Oakland Commune at one time numbered up to 150 tents, with evening gatherings of up to 3000 people in the downtown plaza opposite City Hall. (As of this writing, the downtown plaza has been “retaken” by the occupiers after having been leveled by police, and is actually larger than before the raid.) Oakland City Council, while professing sympathy with the occupiers, expressed concerns about public health issues.

To address the issue, on Day Two a labor coalition contacted by the demonstrators supplied porta-potties – something new and much-needed for the homeless people previously living in the plaza. The Council was concerned about outdoor fires for cooking; protestors arranged with a neighboring church to start using their kitchen.

Vacillating between supportive tolerance and irritation, City Hall soon had new complaints – there were more rats in the plaza than when only the homeless had lived there. Protestors took their success as an excuse to party, and police were concerned about things getting out of hand. Efforts at self-policing became violent. Finally the City issued an eviction notice to clear the plaza of all temporary structures. Oakland Commune ignored it. 

The Homily for St. Paul's

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent 

Spare a prayer for the authorities of St. Paul's.   Protestors invoke the church's duty to the poor, coupling the duty with their choice of method.   The authorities understand the duty but also understand that the duty does not necessarily settle the question of the appropriateness of the underlying methodology of the protestors.  Maybe as important, they face the spectre of a “split” church, that nightmare of all church administrators. Every side of the debate pulls. Every side of the debate will be unforgiving of the church for failing to follow their side's programme.    In the broad sense of the term, a political no win situation. As of 31 Oct, three of St. Paul's clerics have resigned. 

Behind the political no win is a more serious crisis of conscience.  The underlying dilemma is how the church's actions, as much as their words, reflect on St. Paul's discharge of the church's religious standards.   (Photo left of St. Paul's Cathedral and Millenium Bridge from Tate Modern by PHKushlis, August 2010).

The applicable standards are clear. * They are set out at Matthew 7:21, Isaiah 1:11-17, and Matthew 25:34-45.    The last passage sets out the only inflexible “acid test” of the professed follower of Jesus purportedly expressed by Jesus himself.   As a lawyer it is striking to me how similar the format of these standards is to that of a contract, a feature consistent with Biblical standards.   The second standard demonstrates the continuity between the so-called “first covenant” and “second.”   Notice the striking similarity in emphasis. The first passage reemphasizes just how inflexible these standards are and settles (for those who will take it in) the old debate between justification based on faith and justification based on works. It is a distinction without a difference.   

When St. Paul's confronts the underlying issues the protestors protest, as opposed to the method the protestors have chosen, there is no real room for debate.  But the officials do not want to be leveraged into supporting the method. As importantly, siding with the protestors against the interests of the government, many members of the congregation and the responsible lay boards, invites a split church, a disaster for the survival of the institution. 

The resignation of Dean Knowles appears to have cleared the way for the Bishop of London, Bishop Chartres, to stand the church down from the pending eviction action and into dialogue.  City of London followed suit as Archbishop Williams, speaking for the entire Church of England, closed ranks behind Bishop Cartres' actions.

Their quagmire brings back bad memories.  My father, great uncle, 2 of my great uncle's sons, a first cousin, at least one other 2d cousin were ordained ministers. My uncle and grandfather were lay preachers.  I was a lay preacher. In fact, I have documented a train of such ancestors back to 1329 and maybe before. But I have not felt their dilemmas like I feel those of the clerics at St. Paul's and felt those of my more immediate family.  

The conflict between these baseline and inflexible standards of righteousness, on the one hand, and the impact of a “stand” on the minister and his family is as traumatic as it is inevitable.  I know it is the reason my great uncle and two of his sons left the ministry.  I suspect it is the reason I did not follow in my father's footsteps.  It is no less serious because it ordinarily goes on mostly behind closed doors without the general public knowing. The clerics at St. Paul's face a special kind of torment. 

But the standards are clear and as unyielding as the inevitability of such a conflict and the polarization it produces.   As the clerics know, it doesn't matter how many words they honey and marshal. G*d knows.  And there is the rub.  The choice is between faith, because faith means consistent and dependable behaviour not words, and career and comfort of oneself and one's family.   

I have my own view as to whether Giles Fraser or Fraser Dyer or Graham Knowles, now all resigned, had the better of the argument. No doubt you have your own.   No doubt you know mine simply from how I have structured the standards.  But the purpose of this little “Homily” is not a message about the politics but a message about the nature and human cost for each of the players in the tragedy.   
 
 

Reality Check: Is David Cameron’s government poised to implode? Not yet.

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent

With all the bad news you’d think the tide would have turned against Prime Minister David Cameron’s Coalition government.  At least politically, you’d be wrong. Pundits look for “break out issues,” but I suspect Cameron surfs with undercurrents well reckoned. Political change that is more than the choice between Wheaties and Frosted Flakes will require something more fundamental.

The news has certainly been bad.   That is so well documented elsewhere it doesn’t require further from me. 

The Coalition is running out of ideas as to who to blame.   A promising new reason appears to be, the UK economy isn’t growing because ... drum roll please ... wait for it ... management has trouble firing the little guy.  Really. 

But with all that, the disgrace of his Communications master and his Defence Minister, a Tory back bench rebellion, you would still be wrong if you thought the Prime Minister was about to fall.  It may come out of the blue and happen. Such things do.   But the polls don’t show it.  

The relative position of the parties in the polls has changed little since last winter.   The 28 October 2011 YouGov/Sun poll shows “top line” voter shares for the 3 major parties  Conservative 35%, Labour 42%, Liberal Democrat 9%.   The average for months has hovered around 36/41/9.   YouGov often describes this as an average 4-6 point Labour “lead” over the Conservatives.

But the categories cover over the more significant combinations.   The combination of the shares of Conservative, UKIP (at 6%) and Liberal Democrat is 51% on average.   UKIP is not a Coalition partner. But the only policy that distinguishes it from the Conservatives is UKIP wants to pull out of the EU 30 years ago. 

The Right and the Left, both in Coalition and out, have itches they cannot scratch as to specific policy issues and political futures.

On the Right:

Were the rebellion of the Tory right to succeed, it would break the Coalition.  The EU is a line in the sand for the Liberal Democrats.  The Conservatives would either need a new partner or to draw from others on the right.  Such possibilities exist at least in theory with respect to constituencies represented by Conservatives and UKIP. These possibilities might yield 42-43% of the vote.  Of course, votes could be lost also, but let’s assume not.  The new right coalition would be around 42-43% tops.  

The current Coalition represents 45%.  When it first formed, the Coalition exceeded 50%, which any party or Coalition would have to garner to replicate to replace the current Coalition.

The Tory Right and UKIP have no effective place to go.   

On the Left:

Labour’s dial has moved little since winter despite the dismal news. Some blame Labour’s geeky leader. Some blame the Party’s “branding” exercise, which I have described as “we are Frosted Flakes, not Wheaties” (because Labour essentially offers a sweeter glaze over a general direction that does not sell as all that different from that of the Coalition).  But whatever the reason, it seems clear to me that if “break out issues” were going to do it, it would have happened by now. 

Many pray Liberal Democrats will bolt the Coalition, and look desperately for the issue that will do it.  Some thought it might be National Health Service (NHS) reform.  But it was during the NHS reform debate I came to realize something I think very important about the leadership of the Liberal Democrats.  They buy the view that “choice” and “competition” will be the catalyst of a better world for the common man.   They also buy liberalized private “free markets” and “fair trade.”  

These neo liberal views are the glue that binds the Coalition.

The Liberal Democrats would not be part of the Coalition leadership if their constituency did not share those views or was prepared to give leadership the benefit of the doubt.  It is my hunch that unless and until the leadership sees their moderate constituents becoming disillusioned with the model, the Coalition is the Conservative Party’s right wing to lose (by miscounting noses or letting emotion cloud political judgment).    That makes the status of the burning political question of the day . . . not yet.