Response to the LA TIMES: on "Occupy Protests Ironic Legacy, More Restrictions on Protesters"
EXCERPTS FROM THE LA TIMES: “Governments now regulate with new vigor where protesters may stand and walk and what they can carry. Protest permits are harder to get and penalties are steeper. Camping is banned from Los Angeles parks by a new, tougher ordinance. Philadelphia and Houston tightened restrictions on feeding people in public. It’s an ironic legacy for a movement conceived as a voice for the downtrodden.
When Occupy protests first fanned across the country last year, themovement enjoyed widespread popularity, and politicians responded with resolutions of support. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa even had ponchos delivered to Occupy Los Angeles when it rained. But as demonstrations wore on and public sentiment shifted, cities got tougher with protesters.
As Occupy protests threatened to disrupt the May G-8 and NATO summits in Chicago, for example, lawmakers reduced park hours, installed more surveillance cameras, raised fees for protest permits and increased fines for violations. Large protest groups must now submit to a variety of conditions to get permission to demonstrate, including spelling out the dimensions of their placards and banners, and meeting insurance requirements.
Cheryl Aichele, an early member of Occupy Los Angeles, said it was never the movement’s intention to prompt stiffer laws. “If Occupy made those things tougher, it was only because there was a pre-existing push against these things,” Aichele said. But there are enough new restrictions to hobble the Occupy movement, said Todd Gitlin, a journalism professor at Columbia University and author of the book “Occupy Nation.” Membership is declining and protests rarely make headlines now, Gitlin said. When the San Marino City Council voted to confine protests to a city median in October, they made their arguments to an empty room. None of the groups who prompted the law could spare a member to speak against it.” http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/06/local/la-me-occupy-laws-20121206
RESPONSE TO THE LA TIMES:
Dear Frank Shyong,
If you check city council records people did speak out against the camping ban, CCA and numerous Los Angeles city ordinances. If you attended the trials of people wrongly accused of battery on officers, cops perjuring themselves on the stand, city prosecutors lumping together charges to intimidate and (no doubt) justify the harsher public space laws and more surveillance funding (DHS funding local police ’ general services’ because they carry authority over parks and city management) you would see. Articles like these make wild statements and never bother to think about why these politicians engaged in some grand orchestrated show of support for a social movement, just to oppress it as soon as it proved itself unmanageable by corporate party hegemony (democrats who wanted some steam for their election games).
No one bothers to ask WHY majority democratic mayors moved together, at the behest of the CIA and DHS, to crack down on encampments that served as social forums for political thought. No one bothers to ask WHY in one fell swoop the media wrote off ‘the occupy’ and instead focused on cost to the taxpayers as soon as some political managers 'announced' the camps were closed although organizing continued in most areas.
Is no one willing to recognize the polarized party rhetoric and electoral machine that achieve nothing more than ratings, a few ballot cards, some facebook likes, a letter to representatives here and there.. all in the name of the middle class? A political establishment that ignores poverty and the working class, yet somehow manages to function as a nonprofit machine for ‘social justice’ while our civil rights are continuously violated.
I noticed you failed to mention HOW these new masses of ordinances are enforced and by whom, what the consequences have been. Instead, I’m not sure you are aware, but your article enables fear of dissent and reinforces the rule of laws whose role is very clear- social control, managing public dissent, criminalizing protesting and discouraging dissent. I don’t know what time and space you exist in, but any article written about the current political climate truly requires critical thought since so much of our perception is managed, as I’m sure you know.
At this point requiring a pretty extensive discussion on the rise of the police state, merger of corporation and state, and ever mounting fascism. OR did you think they were keeping us safe? Drones, anyone? The narrative of public safety must be challenged, though unfortunately it will probably continue be protected. These new city ordinances and police intimidation tactics are very clearly about the people assembling to discuss and address political issues themselves, having the audacity to rediscover interpersonal dialogue, instead of any privileged class of persons speaking for them.
In the wake of 911 (these discussions are not separate) since the Patriot Act in effect replaced the constitution, blatant fear mongering about terror, desensitization to war, humiliation tactics like TSA to urge compliance, Trapwire, grand juries (no rights apply), NDAA…. These are all tactics used by the state. Meanwhile, the LA TIMES writes article after article about city ordinances without any accountability, blaming protesters for grass, traffic, piss and shit.
What is more disturbing is the urge, somewhat, for observers and critics alike to victim blame those who dared speak out the last year in ways unimaginable to the status quo, which we know every mainstream vacuum of change caters to and creates.
The status quo doesn’t exist, you create it and you uphold it, take some responsibility. So to be clear, when you do comment on the political establishment, make sure you are honest about who is really responsible for the codification of laws limiting public dissent, or if we even have public space. (something tells me it falls under the jurisdiction of our so called representatives) Let alone challenge the narrative of what we can and should amass to do about it. And maybe, just one day, you’ll have the courage to question the governments authoritarian despotic regime. Whether abroad, or here with a carefully managed public relations based domestic policy selling us change and hope instead of direct action and community empowerment.
If not you will sit idly by forever catering your language and words in reflection as you watch countless terrors unfold here, in the United States, in the name of freedom, under the manta of democracy (which we don’t even have). Instead, perhaps consider yourself, OR EVEN SHARE THIS WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES, deliberately or critically engaging, researching and exposing the actions of the dominant narrative and elite. Don’t worry, I will not hold my breath. You, and the establishment you represent, cannot cover the revolutions of the Arab spring and celebrate them as some moral point while simultaneously enabling the narrative of suppression here. You have to be more responsible than that. We are not spectacle. You think we don’t know how it works by now?
We demonstrate. Police escalate. If they hurt us bad enough you show up, you immediately run the public comments released by the police. Which are all lies. Congratulations, tumblr is more reliable than you. Meanwhile, the impending crisis and shifting reality of resistance escape you. Keep selling ads, and don’t be surprised when not all of us are grateful when a ’ journalist’ who writes for a paper wants to get their two cents on occupy published.. without doing any type of comprehensive thinking. There is a reason safe spaces in Oakland exclude press, think about it. "Peace", love and resistance.
