Occupy Oakland goes west

A few weeks ago, the day after Oakland's general strike and march, at the City Hall original Occupy Oakland site.

This morning and last night, the permanent members of the movement, read homeless, have moved west from downtown into West Oakland. After being removed from Fox Square, just a few blocks north of the original camptown in front of city hall, they have moved a few, and a few more, blocks west into my West Oakland neighborhood.



On Saturday, some Occupiers tried to tent-up in Fox Square. They pummeled a gate set up by the city to keep them out, and set up a rave-like situation. A good point why the movement is not going anywhere. Why are you dancing? Understood, it's Saturday night and fun is in the air, but it just felt weak and marginalized, much like the movement as a whole has felt from this casual, basically accidental, observer. When the tents first went up downtown in front of City Hall, I walked through; it was a similar vibe, except there was a get-any-drug-you-want, dissolution Reggae-on-the-River-like camp-out feel. Not impressive from the beginning. There was a makeshift dog pen of pallet wood against a concrete structure that held ferocious-looking Pits and site as a whole had a general malaise, with an undercurrent edge of let's get high and I want some attention.



Camera crews were on the corner a few houses down from mine this morning at 6:30 a.m. as people milled about and around the vacant lot, now filled with tents, at an intersection of my street and another. Apparently, the lot's being foreclosed on, which means that the bank, as a bank, was part of that big bail out, takes the property, and the little one, the owner, loses it. Messed up on the surface of things. But this occupation isn't about that. It's about the extremely disenfranchised taking the opportunity to be in the spotlight. This will blow over. If a doctor or lawyer was in the camp, or someone that looked like he or she had some societal power, then it might be different. It's just a fringe, lost cause.



And one dude, at the original downtown Oakland site, moved to the trees. Caught this funny video of some dudes on the ground grilling him about life in the tree. Where do you go to the bathroom? A bucket. How do you shit? Another guy on the ground, answering for him, laughing: Stand there and I'll show you. "It's gonna be colder than a motherfucker."