Recently, Oaklandside, the Google-funded local online newsletter, published this story on the tenth anniversary of the infamous Occupy Oakland rally and riot of Oct. 25, 2011—the one at which the young Marine veteran, Scott Olsen, was struck in the head by a projectile fired by the Oakland Police Department.
I read the story carefully, since I was there that night, and I’ve seen many inaccurate or incomplete accounts over the years. In order to set the record straight, I sent the following email to Oaklandside:
“It was disconcerting to read Ali [Winston’s] one-sided story. I was there that night of Oct. 25, 2011. I was at the front of the Occupy crowd. I’d been a huge Occupy supporter, and went that night in solidarity with the protesters.
I left that night with a different viewpoint.
First of all—which Ali never once had the integrity to report—OPD repeatedly begged the protesters to back away from City Hall. When I say “repeatedly,” I mean it literally. For at least 15 minutes, maybe longer, someone through a loudspeaker urged them to disperse. Warnings were clearly given. Right before the shit hit the fan, I myself backed up about 100 feet. I knew what was about to happen.
The protesters, including Scott Olsen, also knew. It was clear and obvious. Warning after warning, request after request from OPD, and yet the crowd grew more and more aggressive. What was OPD supposed to do—let the mob take over City Hall and ransack downtown? So OPD struck—in my opinion, with justification.
In the mayhem that ensued, I found myself running chaotically in a crowd of perhaps 200 people. This was on Telegraph Avenue. Suddenly, I saw a young man, wearing a black bandana around his face, pull a crowbar out of his pants and randomly begin smashing store windows, car windows, etc. Shocked, I asked him what he was doing. When he didn’t answer, I said, “Dude, this is our city! Why are you destroying it?” And then he hit me.
That’s when my attitude toward Occupy changed.
In previous “town hall”-type meetings with Occupy at Ogawa Plaza, I had urged Occupy to denounce violence. Their leaders, unfortunately, refused to do so. Instead, they insisted that “a variety of means” had to be embraced—including violence.
That’s when Occupy lost me, and millions of other reasonable, centrist, non-violent Democrats and Independents. Occupy didn’t die. Occupy wasn’t killed. Occupy committed suicide.
Sadly, it is “reporting” such as this article by Ali that continues to spread trumpian disinformation. We all feel sorry for Scott Olsen, but really, he walked into the situation deliberately, failed to heed OPD’s urgent calls for dispersal, and suffered the consequences.
Steve Heimoff
Adams Point”
I bring all this up, not to rehash ancient history, but to make sure that the facts are recorded.
I also bring it up because it’s closely related to a theme I’ve been writing about lately: the discrediting of “progressivism” in its most extreme forms.
It’s my contention that radical politics on both sides is wrong and divisive. There was nothing wrong with Occupy’s original impulses: to criticize the “one percent” and the tax system that benefits them; to call attention to egregious inequality in America; to unite the 99% into a solid block of voters against Republican favoritism of the rich and powerful. But when these noble ends became tainted with violence, arson, vandalism, mindless destruction and physical assaults on people like me, Occupy, as I wrote, committed suicide.
We’ve seen this same mindless resort to violence in post-George Floyd protests in numerous American cities. This violence is related to “defund the police” demands by people like Cat Brooks and certain members of the Oakland City Council. Both the violence and the anti-police rhetoric have been soundly rejected by the American people, including a majority of Oaklanders.
The events of ten years ago and the cancel-culture and wokeism we’re seeing today have this in common: both are dreary, perverted overreactions from the far left. Granted, the left has plenty of legitimate grievances. But there’s a smart way to tackle these grievances, and there’s a stupid way. Calls to “defund the police” are stupid because they alienate vast numbers of Americans whose sympathies would otherwise lay with the Democratic Party and, yes, with police reform. When school boards try to rename schools named after George Washington—when Lowell High School’s merit-based admissions program is trashed—when homeless encampments are permitted by the City of Oakland to spread uncontrollably—these are all related manifestations of the same phenomenon: the politics of stupidity. The American people aren’t idiots. They recognize when they’re being handed a steaming load, which is what the far left of the Democratic Party is giving them (and so, by the way, is the far right of the Republican Party). We can do better!
Steve Heimoff
Please come to the big rally tomorrow (Friday) at noon, in Frank Ogawa Plaza. Lots of fun, with speakers (including me) and Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong. See you there.
