The BART train this morning was eerily empty. Oakland police had began their raid on Occupy Oakland campers three hours prior. As I glanced around the train, I realized that my lack of blogging (which is directly correlated to my obsession with reading the
A Song of Ice and Fire series) is resulting in me missing out on the chance to document an incredibly important part of history. Since I am just someone who likes to write the funny things she sees during her commute (and not a journalist), I'll let the Wikipedia summarize the Occupy movement for you:
Occupy Movement
My perspective of Occupy has been mostly from a Bay Area resident and commuter's standpoint. My fear of crowds and aversions to confrontation and being arrested make me a poor protester. We stopped by Occupy SF one afternoon early into the movement. Occupy SF has NOTHING on Occupy Oakland. Much to my surprise, Occupy SF was relatively small. While the protesters were passionate, their causes were not unified and the most shocking thing I witnessed was a pair of naked men with their "accouterments." While I was there, protesters were polite to the police and vice versa (which hasn't always the case:
San Francisco Police Confront Occupy SF Protesters Market Street Overnight and
Occupy San Francisco Protesters Attacked Two Officers, Police Say)
From what I understand, Occupy Oakland has the flavor of a Vietnam-era protest. Occupy Oakland protesters are persistent. The police have raided their camps twice now (while the right to protest is protected, the right to camp is not). The term raid turned out to be an appropriate term: tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets were used against the crowd of protesters to break up the camps in the October 25th raid and 32 protesters were arrested in the November 14th raid. Yet Oakland protesters keep coming back (and in the case of the November 14th raid, refused to leave). On November 2, 2011, 30,000 peaceful protesters convened on downtown Oakland and marched on the Port of Oakland and shut it down (impressive, considering Oakland is the FIFTH LARGEST PORT in the U.S.)! Say what you want about Oakland, but it's got passion!
So how has all this affected me on BART? Rather minimally to be honest. I receive emergency updates from BART and the City of Oakland. When a protest is planned, I make sure to leave the office by 4:30 pm so as not to get stuck in the BART commuter rush AND delayed trains. The latest I've ever been is 45 minutes. This has only happened twice. The BART trains generally will skip the 12th Street Oakland stop if trouble's a-brewin' downtown. The worst circumstance was last Thursday, when a man was jumped by five men near an Occupy Oakland camp (Occupy protesters swear he was not affiliated with the movement) and killed. That, and the fact that the brakes went out on the train I was on (do you know what happens when the brakes go out? They restart the car, since everything on the car is electric. Which means we sat in the dark in a tunnel for a few minutes), made for a very long start to my three day weekend. A man lost his life that night, though, so I will NOT complain about a long commute.
