As I am writing this, I am listening to a live stream of the police raid of Occupy Oakland’s camp.  This raid is now in its 14^th hour.  My stomach is turning.  I can taste adrenaline in my mouth, and I am just outside of Philadelphia, more than 2,800 miles away.  Police are now making a notification of pending arrests; choppers are overhead and a sonic cannon is being set-up.

When I woke up this morning, I heard about the raid and contacted Mayor Jean Quan’s office to plead she call it off.  Apparently, my plea and those of countless others, I’m sure, fell on deaf ears.  Whatever Mayor Quan’s career aspirations are, they clearly do not require winning over the people of Oakland.

The fight is intensifying with every moment that I write.  The knot in my stomach grows tighter and more acidic.

I am not sure why a city as close to economic disaster as Oakland is would use its resources and spend its money to break up a peaceful assembly.  I am even more perplexed by the thinking of the Mayor and her administrators in regards to addressing said assembly.  The brutality of this eviction, the lack of communication with Occupy members, and the blatant disrespect for the constitutional rights of all American citizens is only the surface of the poor judgment that lies at the heart of this attack.  The deeper failing lies in the very idea that this single attack, a vile waste of dwindling resources in the collapsing city of Oakland, will put an end to a local branch of a movement that has reached all six inhabited continents and that gains power and visibility every day.  The decision to mount this attack against a peaceful, constitutional assembly which is ultimately backed by millions of people worldwide is short-sighted and plainly moronic.  It is cutting a head off of Hydra.

By now, the park has been gassed and cleared in Oakland, but where did they go?  They went into the streets, and they did so in greater number.  Tomorrow, the camp will be back, the march will be bigger, and the message will be louder.  This movement isn’t going away, and attacking it will only make is stronger.  Arrestees become heroes.  Cuff marks become war wounds.  Tear gas becomes the wind of change.

My writing has been repeatedly interrupted by visual checks on the streaming video and surfing to find new feeds.  I am updating Twitter every few minutes.  The news grows more and more shocking.  An aerial feed of Oakland’s remaining occupants who took to the streets and reassembled at another location was cut off moments before police launched pepperballs at that crowd.  In a desperate search to find more information, I refresh my Twitter again to learn that two more cities have come under attack.  I am sick.

With no more video to follow, I turn to the television.  Unable to get localized coverage of the events, which undoubtedly will be only momentary snips of video and unassertive comments on the attacks, I find nothing; and I mean nothing.  The national news coverage struggles to find things to cover in their attempts to ignore the growing Occupy movement: a series of political candidates shaking hands with the people they will knife in the back the moment they are in office; the exhausted, tabloid-esque coverage of Michael Jackson’s doctor who – SURPRISE! – was really just a pharmaceutical drug dealer; the financial double-talk of an investing advisor masking the truth of our economic ruin with literal bells and whistles.  Not a peep about the brutal attacks taking place on an increasing number of cities.

As the feed dies, my ability to watch comes to a close, but it doesn’t matter.  I know how this night ends.  Some are arrested, some are treated for wounds, and some seek shelter.  All reassemble.  It won’t be long – a day at most – before the tents are up, the people are back, and the marching begins again.  Even as I write this, I hear a voice breaks through.  Clicking over to my internet browser, I discover a feed that had been cut off streaming again.  The pixelated image reveals a line of officers with riot shields and a line of “movers” (I refuse to call them “protesters” – see Protest Is For Pansies) standing before them, still fighting in what is now hour 17.  Believe me when I say this, Mayor Quan – and all those who attempt to crush this movement under the boots of oppression, they will still be there tomorrow and the day after and the day after that and all the days it takes to make this right.

Note: While all this was transpiring, my father – a brilliant man who is both sympathetic to the movement and a retiree of the NYPD – sent me an article about the Albany Police Department in upstate New York.  The officers of the department refused to follow the commands of local officials to evict the Occupy campers in their city.  I have not read the article yet, but will and promise to write about it soon.  This is notable, commendable, and wise.  During the Nuremburg Trails, obeying orders was not a reasonable excuse for carrying out acts against citizens that were morally divergent or even questionable… something the officers of forces around the globe might want to keep in mind.