Oakland Under Fire

Not since Michael Jackson's death (a.k.a. the Craziest Day of My Life) have I heard so many helicopters.  Once again, it sounded like we were under attack.

At 4:30 am this morning, Oakland decided they were going to kick Occupy Oakland out of their downtown encampments.  No big deal to me.  I mean, I like the motion that Occupy Everything is creating (especially Occupy Herbstreit), but I'm not one to live like I'm homeless for a cause.  I don't even like living like I'm homeless for fun (you might call it camping).

Cops using gas on Occupy Oakland

The big thing is that Annie and I live about a mile away from downtown Oakland where all of this is happening. (Since you have to walk around a lake, it's about 1.8 miles away.)  And, as I said before, they used choppers to help their police.  So, yeah, it was loud and annoying at an awful hour this morning.  And it kept going on 'til about 8am.

We kept the news on, to find out when the streets were safe enough to take Annie to work.  You know, since Annie works a block away from where these protesters are standing off with the police.  The roads were closed, and BART closed the nearby station.  We finally took our chances and went in at about 8am, and made it through fine, but I'm interested to hear what happens.

The news is saying that now-awake protesters are starting to return and throw things at the cops.  The professional protesters from Berkeley and San Francisco (donned in ratty 'Save Darfur' and 'Impeach Bush' shirts) have shown up to help make a scene.  And they know what they're doing.  The word has gone out that Occupy Oakland will reconvene at the downtown library at 4pm today.  And that's where things get rough.

2 nights ago.  Tonight should be much more interesting.

Daytime Oakland protests and public gatherings are typically real protesters.  As soon as it starts to get dark, and if there's reasonable resistance to the cops already, the more news-worthy Oaklandites show up to riot for real.  Like, burning streets / looting rioting.  They don't need to be involved or even support the movement; they just want chaos and crime.

And that's what we're looking forward to tonight.  I really want to play volleyball, too, but it's also in the same block that will probably be called Ground Zero tomorrow.  Maybe I'm just pessimistic, or maybe Annie and I can just recognize patterns.

So, yeah, umm... Oakland RIOT!?!
~RoB