The day Occupy died

For someone merely skimming the newspaper, it would be easy to overlook the recent violence surrounding the Occupy Oakland protest.

In fact, reports of nothing worse than tear gas, improvised explosives and mass arrests generally indicate a relatively peaceful weekend in Oakland, Calif.

Yet, something notable did happen a certain day. It was the day the Occupy movement died.

It died at 3 p.m. Jan. 28. when an Occupy march tore through police barricades on its way to the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center.

After being warned to disperse peacefully, the protestors instead attempted to force their way through, assaulting officers with everything from hurled rocks and lengths of metal pipes to improvised explosives. The police retaliated with tear gas and bean bag guns.

Final score: three injured officers and 20 arrested protestors.

Death throes are an ugly thing. The brain, failing fast or already dead, fires neurons at random, causing the body to twitch, spasm, convulse.

So, too, pass ideologies.

The last great postmortem spasm of the Occupy movement occurred hours later when protestors broke into the Oakland City Hall.

They vandalized the interior before stealing an American flag and burning it on the front steps of the building.

The day ended with more than 400 arrests and an undisclosed number of injuries. Also, one death, but we’ve mentioned that already.

To bring about meaningful social change, there is nothing like a peaceful demonstration, and Oakland has become nothing like a peaceful demonstration.

The Occupy movement has lost the moral high ground that initially earned it so much sympathy and support. When it began, it was a hopeful and idealistic movement devoted to correcting what it saw as grave social injustices.

This was the movement so many rallied around.

Leaders such as King and Gandhi understood what the Occupiers seem to have forgotten: It is impossible to win the hearts and minds of a country through violence and aggression.

They found support simply by being better than those who oppressed them and inspiring others to strive for that same level of excellence.

The recent violence in Oakland has robbed the movement of its image as the victimized and disenfranchised.

The flag burning was simply the latest and most overt act in a long series of poor decisions, the most egregious being the decision to “occupy” abandoned buildings.

The reasoning itself is infallible. We have homeless people and unused shelters. It’s a reasonable and elegant solution.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any less illegal to trespass on privately owned ground.

Such a form of protest will inevitably lead to police intervention, which begins a vicious cycle of resentment and disrespect.

It’s no secret that the protestors are angry. There’s a lot to be angry about.

The unemployment rate, mismanagement of the financial sector, rising tuition costs and falling wages should worry anybody who is paying attention.

But vandalism, violence and flag-burning are acts of impotent rage, incapable of doing anything but alienating thoughtful, reasonable reformers.

­— stefsoko@indiana.edu