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By SHEPHERD BLISS
Dream on, Press Democrat editors. Your “Occupy movement in ashes” editorial on Wednesday was wishful thinking. Our phoenix will rise during this month. You wait. You watch. You’ll see.
Shepherd Bliss.
Occupy is still an infant, having been born in New York Sept. 17 with Occupy Wall Street. It is not even five months old and already you try to editorialize it into ashes. Rumors of our death are premature. We have made mistakes, including in Oakland. We’re learning and experiencing what one activist calls “growing pains.”
Provoked by police violence in Oakland, a few cornered occupiers among the 2,000 present reacted. That has not happened here. The Sonoma County Occupy Town Hall Affinity Group — of which I am a member — opposes violence, as do the overwhelming majority of Occupy groups and individuals.
I do, however, respect the right of self-defense by those cornered by the police. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Violence is the voice of the unheard.” And as President John F. Kennedy said in a 1962 speech at the White House, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
What would you do when surrounded by a large group of armed, masked, threatening, charging and rioting armored men? I praise the brave souls willing to face such police violence. As one occupier wondered, “What’s next? Live ammunition?”
Punishing people in a democracy should be the job of the courts, not the police, which Oakland police are notorious for doing. They fan the flames.
The Press Democrat carefully selects what to report and what to exclude. A daily newspaper should represent various voices of its community, rather than just the status quo.
Occupy has “officially overstayed its welcome,” the PD alleges. Since when has the PD ever welcomed Occupy or officiated over such matters? The argument that what a few people did in one city reduces the national Occupy movement to ashes is without merit.
The PD asks occupiers to condemn the violence in Oakland. I condemn the police brutality and criticize the much less violent behavior of a few activists. I have done so within our movement and publicly, as have other Occupy co-leaders. Now, will The Press Democrat denounce the violence of the Oakland police, who exercise unlawful authority? Or is there a double-standard here?
Burning the American flag is an inflammatory and futile act of frustration that dilutes the main messages of the majority of occupiers and our many supporters, which is to bring about fundamental changes in our economic and political systems. When I was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army, I swore an oath to defend my country against external and internal threats. I have kept that vow, which is a big reason that I am part of the Occupy movement, as are many veterans. Violence by occupiers is a tactical mistake. The guns, other weapons, and media are in the hands of the protectors of the wealthy 1 percent. Violence is also a strategic and moral error.
The real violence that we should oppose includes banks that gambled and foreclosed on the homes of millions, corporations that buy politicians with their big bucks and stripping workers’ pensions and health care benefits. Occupy does need to mature. Young people, especially, are desperate today. Their college debts are astronomical and their job options are minimal. Desperation can lead to violence. Long-term organizing is more likely to be successful.
“Ashes,” you fantasize. Yet on Feb. 9 the Sonoma County Town Hall will host its third of ongoing monthly gatherings in a downtown Sebastopol church; 130 to 140 people attended the previous two. On Feb. 17 the new Occupied Press-North Bay will show the film “Battle in Seattle,” about the l999 shutdown of the World Trade Organization. On Feb. 25, Occupy Santa Rosa will support teachers unions in a day of action in support of public education.
These are samples of the dozens of activities lead by Sonoma County Occupy groups as we prepare to move from a reflective winter into an action-oriented spring. Do these indicate “ashes?” You wait. You watch. You’ll see.
Shepherd Bliss teaches part-time at Sonoma State University and owns an organic farm in Sebastopol. E-mail him at 3sb@comcast.net.
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@Podunkers It’s more pervasive than that—unfortunately the bigoted are not isolated. But now that the pendulum has swung so far to the right in their party we “get to” see them more…as they feel even safer and more justified they crawl out of their crevices and into their big suburbans bumperstickered with pink ribbons and plow down Sea Squirrel Lane to their local Curves.
So, did the right-wing Oakie clan set up satellite compounds in Windsor and Novato?
Nixon; a flawed personality, no question, but accomplishments?
“Nixon inherited the war with Vietnam and during his time in office, he cut the number of soldiers down from over 540000 troops to 25,000. By 1972 all U.S. ground combat troops were withdrawn.
On April 30, 1970, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops raided Cambodia to try and capture the Communist headquarters. Protests erupted around the nation. The most visible was at Kent State University. Students protesting at the campus were fired on by the Ohio National Guard killing four and wounding nine.
In January 1973, a peace treaty was signed whereby all U.S. forces left withdrew from Vietnam and all prisoners of war were released. Soon after the agreement, however, fighting resumed and the Communists eventually won.
In February 1972, President Nixon traveled to China to try and encourage peace and more contact between the two nations. He was the first to visit the country.
Acts to protect the environment were huge during Nixon’s time in office. The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970.
On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon and man took his first step outside of earth. This fulfilled Kennedy’s goal to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.”
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/richardnixon/p/pnixon.htm
And more:
“Nixon’s accomplishments while in office included: ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), ending segregation, revenue sharing, ending the draft, new anti crime laws, started the process of ending the Cold War, recognized and fought against foreign oil price gouging, and implemented a broad environmental program (he is largely responsible for the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).
He was the only President to achieve a balanced national budget between 1961 and 1998.
Some of his most acclaimed achievements came in his quest for world stability. During visits in 1972 to Beijing and Moscow, he reduced tensions with China and the U.S.S.R. His summit meetings with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. In January 1973, he announced an accord with North Vietnam to end American involvement in Indochina. In 1974, his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents, Egypt and Syria.”
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_were_the_major_accomplishments_of_Richard_Nixon#ixzz1liz2B7MQ
Solid confirmation that Ignorance is Bliss!
And, in this case, Bliss is ignorant.
Amazing that people like this are allowed to pollute minds.
John Reed:
Give the tired brownshirt cliches a rest, and quit seeing the ghost of Nixon behind every tree.
Of course, I’ll denounce “Anyone with social democratic, progressive or socialist political affiliations…” Because their failed ideas are causing great damage to this once-great country. Will I call for them to be removed? If they are elected officials, definitely. That is a concept called democracy.
Do I call for academics to be removed? Absolutely not. I just feel sorry for the poor students who have to put up with leftist babble all through college without ever having the benefit of one conservative professor.
Finally, you may call conservatives “the worst, most reactionary elements in society.” I choose to call them George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Rudy Guiliani.
“Stop the McCarthyism!”
We did, and the legions of paid communist spies in govt. spent the next 40 years trying to subvert America and hand victory to the USSR.
They failed because their philosophy is morally bankrupt and economically unsustainable.
After the fall of Gobachev’s Soviet prison-state, we got a chance to peruse the Soviet archives and surprise!
Sen Joseph McCarthy was not only right, he had missed most of the traitors.
McCarthy has long been vindicated by facts and history. Only the avowed anti-Americans still curse him.
We need a new Joe McCarthy to call a spade a spade and point out how much vestigial communist subversion is still providing the energy behind Occupy, AGW and the Democrat Party.
Dear Shepherd Bliss, Thank you for your eloquent piece on Sonoma County’s Occupy Movement. I want you to know you are not alone. Luckily, most of the folks that infiltrate these boards represent a minority sect of right-wing nut jobs. Their folks came here long ago from Oklahoma and they haven’t spread their wings much since then. They won’t let anybody in or out. They’re against the Smart Train, Immigrants, Black Presidents, Taxes and Education. There’s a part of Northwest Santa Rosa that’s actually referred to (by them lovingly) as Okie Flats. If you don’t duck and try to hide, you can see their tattered confederate flags flying from their 10 feet high pick-ups.
“Nixon never died: he lives on in the imaginations of the right-wing”
Amazing how the pernicious legacy of Nixon, who made his career going after suspected ‘Reds’ in the government and academia, still live on in the imaginations of the right-wing. Anyone with social democratic, progressive or socialist political affiliations is denounced and the call goes out to remove them from their government or academic post.
These are the brownshirts of our time, who persist despite their utter historical disgrace in the eyes of civilized people world-wide. We will not give the worst, most reactionary elements in society veto power over who gets to teach in our universities. Stop the McCarthyism!
Sheppard Bliss, still smarting from the inability to get leaf blowers banned in Sebastopol, has pinned his hopes for legitimacy and meaning on this rag tag group of malcontents that continue to disgrace Sebastopol’s town square, and disrupt council meetings.
It must be very disturbing to face the reality that this “movement” he is so excited about is ending in disgrace after only a few short months.
If Sebastopol city council had any sense, it would have ended even sooner.
They defied the no camping ordinance, and the police chief brought them brownies.
That is surely police brutality-they must have wanted chocolate chip cookies!
They are the only group that has not been required to obtain liability insurance or pay the $350.00 per day user fee for the square. There is rarely anyone in the propaganda tent in the town square, it just sits there looking trashy.
Families no longer use the square- it is not a nice place to go unless you like bongo drums, and insulting signs. I really liked the sign that said “Guantanamo, torture in your name” that someone finally covered the y on so it said “in our name”.
Until the record store owner talked them into moving across the street for the night, they were planning on staying in the square so the tree lighting ceremony could not take place.
There is no consideration of others by this group.
Since Sheppard Bliss claims to want more even wealth distribution, why don’t they start by paying “their fair share” for the use of the plaza?
Do the people within the group evenly distribute their own wealth among each other?
I’m sure the dishwasher or other unemployed group members could use part of that S.S.U. salary, and would appreciate a sizeable portion of produce from Mr. Bliss’s backyard garden.
To keep things fair for everyone, his occupy comrades should pay the city for the time that they have used or continue to use the square, like everyone else does.
The proceeds can go to helping people or groups that don’t have any money, but wish to use the square for their own propaganda.
So far, I estimate that it is well over four thousand dollars that the users need to come up with.
We can’t have them hoarding that money, while others must pay.
Mr. Bliss could use his considerable salary from S.S.U. to pay for a poor student’s tuition and books, or give the others in his group the same comfortable lifestyle he enjoys-that would be productive and a good example for others.
The Tea party did not embrace chaos, anarchy or class warfare as part of their
movement. It was born of passion, yet practices restraint and civility.
It does not seek to impose it’s will on fellow Americans, or take forcibly what others have earned.
Violence and destruction are not “growing pains”, they are an indication of the true character of people.
Councilmember Kathleen Schaffer must be rethinking her solidarity pledge now that she finds herself in the occupy crosshairs over the CVS and Chase bank moving to the vacant corner. Is this really all the failed group can come up with for their cause? Standing on the street corner holding signs opposing the relocation of a bank and drug store?
A phoenix may seem likely to Mr. Bliss, but I’m just seeing a barking Schnauzer.
Part time professor Bliss is living in the land of bliss at Sonoma State. He needs to stay out of the real world of occupy.
The occupy mob are revolutionaries who want an extreme leftists regime established, the destruction of capitalism and world as we know it turned on its head.
He can sit there in his ivory tower spouting his “give communism chance” but the reality of occupy is quite different. It has demonstrated its will to go to the barricades, destroy property and try to disrupt the local economy.
Bliss is not supporting a little group of Hyde Park speakers. He is advocating a truly revolutionary group that has demonstrated their willingness to use brute force to gain a point and an objective. The police are there to prevent anarchy, property damage and pubic safety.
It is the occupy rabble that has caused the injuries, property damage and anarchy.
Yes, Bliss needs to read a little more Marx and fall asleep in his peaceful bed dreaming of a red revolution.
Take this man at his word. He is quite serious. Occupy will be back very soon.
Considering its huge popularity last year, expect even bigger things this year.
Attend the film on the 17th for a video of what Occupy ’12 will look like.
To ignore a movement with such a violent and destructive first season would be foolish.
The organizing forces behind Occupy will double down on chaos and anarchy to the detriment of us all.
The fault is all ours, as we eagerly welcomed an avowed enemy of everything American into SSU to infect our children with this poison.
Educators of his bent have been recruited and promoted in every public school system in America.
We have created a dependent class that is unsustainable. They are being told to join a new movement that will solve all their problems. Plus they will all be on TV.
There are terrible consequences to that, but Mr Bliss will explain them all away as righteous and just.
Long hot summer.
The movement is growing? Well, yes, if you listen to the news that reports Occupy has joined with immigrants groups and Critical Mass bicyclists. Perhaps they will next embrace the legalize marijuana groups, and all can lament what the 1% are doing to them, beating them down, and disrespecting their ideology. And are we surprised that the esteemed spokesperson here, Shepherd Bliss is an organic farmer in the forward thinking community of Sebastopol? Most likely not…
If they had some kind of goal and were acting to accomplish it, fine. But participation is just a fashion statement. Noise isn’t free speech. Anyone can go into the street and bang trash can lids and get attention. But we keep waiting for some signal and we’re not getting it. So, of course the neighborhood is going to be saying “Shut up!” What’s the point?
I never realized that the Press Democrat’s distribution went to subscribers inhabiting such far away planets.
Please don’t continue to teach our children….stay home and farm.
There are more people than ever in this country, and especially in this state, who want a free lunch, so yes, the occupy movement is probably growing.
When some tea party supporters became verbally abusive and disrupted the town hall meetings of members of Congress, the media and Democrats heaped (justified) criticism of this behavior.
Times have changed. Violence, vandalism, and illegal blocking of entrances to public buildings and businesses are now proclaimed to be free speech. That a flaccid media panders to this sort of thing is depressing, but when the public ceases to know the difference between speech and street thuggery, kiss civil society goodbye.
Even Jean Quan, no right-winger she, has had enough. Pity Oakland. Having spent many millions of dollars to attract people downtown, it’s now going to waste because people avoid all businesses in the area, those directly affected or not.
“What would you do when surrounded by a large group of armed, masked, threatening, charging and rioting armored men?”
When that large group are police officers who are evicting lawbreakers from a squalid, illegal camp, the logical response would be to comply with their request, rather than throw rocks and bottles at a vastly better-equipped and better-trained force, then convince yourself you were justified to do so.
But this sort of logic evidently evades Mr, Bliss, who can only think in sadly outmoded 60s cliches. Robert Coleman-Senghor and Jonah Raskin are no longer imposing their pitiful ideologies on young minds at Sonoma State, but I see Mr. Bliss is carrying on their tradition of making his classroom a logic-free zone.
Having spoken to a person who was in Oakland during the first, violent, break up, he said the anarchists were in charge. Many death threats were made and bricks thrown at police. More like 50 violent protestors going head to head with police. He ran for his life as much from the police response and the violence that provoked it. He thought the police SHOULD have used live ammunition on those throwing bricks and steel pipes. He thought his own people would be killed and thought the police would have been justified in taking them out. It is all a matter of perspective. Where were you standing when the bricks were landing? The throwers werent in the first row, thoses cowards never are. Then again, no one came forward to idntify them either. Birds of a feather.