I watched news coverage of your treatment of the Occupy membership last week with what can most politely be called dismay. As such, I read your open letter to the Citizens of Oakland with some interest.
Though I am not a resident of Oakland, and though I in no way officially or unofficially speak for Occupy (and though I fear you are aggressively disinterested), I have a response.
I want to focus on the paragraphs that most sharply seized my attention:
That’s hundreds of City workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against “the establishment.” But aren’t the Mayor and her Administration part of the establishment they are paying City employees to protest? Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?
It is all very confusing to us.
Putting aside Mayor Quan's apparent backpedaling, please examine the paragraphs you wrote very very carefully. In particular, I want you to consider the assumption it makes of an adversarial relationship.
Occupy has made it extremely clear that it considers you among its membership -- police, firefighters, emergency services personnel, sanitation workers, school teachers, administrators, public employees of all stripe. As such it is, to use your term, confusing when you refer to a skirmish line. As far as Occupy is concerned, there is no skirmish line -- we are all the same people, in the same boat, facing the same problems.
It cannot have escaped your notice that there is a concerted effort afoot to starve public institutions of resources -- sharp reductions of departmental budgets and staff, highly suspect claims that pension plans can no longer be afforded. We imagine this concerns you. It concerns us, too. It's in our best interests that the public infrastructure is functioning well. That can't happen if the needed resources aren't there.
You speak of confusion. Well, we have some points of confusion, too. For example, we're confused about all these calls for slashing public budgets. Where are they coming from? (Certainly not from Occupy.) And why are they being heeded when they are so clearly caustic to the social fabric?
Here's another one, which might be gratuitously provocative: In the midst of banks extending predatory loans, trying to evade document filing fees with county clerks via MERS, and then falsifying foreclosure paperwork; in the midst of Credit Default Swaps that are still being written and traded, despite the fact that they trashed the economy; in the midst of jobs being shipped overseas to appease the computers running mutual funds; in the midst of 10% unemployment which Republican lawmakers not only abjectly refuse to do anything about, but are actively blocking anyone else from doing anything about it... We are confused that a fully equipped regiment of armed and armored police officers chose to direct its attention against an explicitly non-confrontational protest group for no other reason than being unsightly.
Please don't misunderstand; none of us labors under the misapprehension that police work is easy. But let me turn the question around. In the current economic and political climate, do you think being unemployed is easy? Do you think having a chronic illness without access to health care is easy? Do you think being homeless is easy?
We love Oakland and just want to do our jobs to protect Oakland residents.
Please look out your metaphorical front window into Oscar Grant Plaza. There you will find Oakland residents, the very people you are protecting. There you will find people who love Oakland just as much. There you will find people who want many of the same things you do, and who are almost certainly willing to help you.
Here's a completely crazy suggestion: Put down the rulebook for an afternoon. Don't think in terms of regulations or ordinances or codes. Think instead in terms of what people need right now. Set aside your badge, grab a thermos of tea, go among the Occupy membership, and listen. Don't go in assuming you know anything -- pretend you're visiting a foreign culture (many of their customs will seem strange to you). Don't judge. Don't explain, don't excuse, don't defend, just listen. It will require patience and a keen ear.
But you need to have this talk. You and the Occupy membership both need to understand the "landscape" each other inhabits. Communicating via press release isn't working. And communicating via tear gas canister definitely isn't working. You need to start having the conversation -- the long, arduous, frustrating, and extremely essential conversation (bring lots of tea).
And I assure you, it is not only a conversation worth having, it is a conversation that must be had.
12:12 PM PT: Update 12:06 PDT: ZOMG Rec List! swoon
Don't really have anything to add, except to say that I hope the conversation takes place.