A week ago on my blog I suggested that the time would come when the police would begin to question the orders they are being given in connection with the Occupy Wall Street Protests. [1] Now police for the City of Oakland are registering their dismay that they were asked to clear the protestors’ encampment last week, with some measure of violence you will recall, only to find that Oakland Mayor Jean Quan allowed the encampment to resume a day later. [2]
Sgt. Dom Arotzarena, president of the Oakland police union, pointing out that the police consider themselves members of the 99%, are confused about the Mayor’s position. “What was last Tuesday all about? The mayor is painting us as the bad guys in all of this,” he said to The Associated Press. “We get one order one day and then she flip-flops the next day. We’re going to be seen as the establishment, and it’s not fair to the police, it’s not fair to anyone.” Sgt. Arotzarena went on to make this observation: “We’re set to fail on this.”
Thus the police are gaining some insight into the political class they work for, that once noble breed that successfully challenged the might of the British Empire, but has in our day become the sycophantic water carrier for the wealthy. They see a mayor trying to distance herself from the act of aggression she ordered, and throw the blame on the police who carried her order out. The police feel as though they were set up, and they were.
Interestingly, the City of Oakland has decided to permit its employees to participate in today’s protest, that will include a planned general strike, while at the same time increasing the police presence at strike related events. The Oakland Police Officer’s Association has sent a letter to the mayor asking about this attempt to play on both sides of the fence. The letter asks, “Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?” Of course, what the politicians in Oakland and throughout the country are trying to do is find a way to avoid the wrath of the gradually awakening public on the one hand, and their moneyed overlords on the other.
Meanwhile, due to the serious injuries sustained by former Marine and Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen during the attack on the Occupy Oakland encampment last week, military veterans are mobilizing to increase both their presence and their profile in the Occupy Wall Street movement. [3] The ranks of the veterans in the movement have been swelling ever since the police, acting under orders from Mayor Quan, fractured Mr. Olsen’s skull.
So, veterans are increasingly becoming involved with the movement, and the police are beginning to question the role into which they have been cast. At the end of the day, the plutocracy will be forced to choose whether to acquiesce to the growing voice of the people or to shed blood. But if present trends continue, there will be no one left to do the blood shedding for them.
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