According to a variety of news accounts, a clash ensued yesterday between members of the Occupy Oakland movement, who journeyed to the state Capitol to counter a rally by a group called the South African Project, and that group, which claims to be in existence to stop the murder, torture and genocide of the white South Africans.
According to the Associated Press, the clash erupted on Monday afternoon, as the California Highway Patrol and Sacramento police were escorting 35 members of the South African group, who had a permit to demonstrate, following their rally outside the Capitol.
At this point, about 50 members from Occupy Oakland reportedly began throwing cans and bottles at the South African group. They would clash with police as the South African group members hurried into the parking lot.
Two officers were injured, with a report that the injuries included one of them, ironically enough, being pepper sprayed.
According to the AP: “The clash followed a tense afternoon during which peace officers kept the two groups separated outside the Capitol.”
Three members of the Occupy movement were arrested on suspicion of “disobeying an officer.”
According to their website, the South African Project members have been organizing across the nation: “The South Africa Project is launching a campaign to draw concerned men and women to appeal to the masses of White citizens of the international community, to convince them to ban together, to form a human tidlewave [sic], a tsunami of flesh, a flood of outrage that will command attention and action from our lawmakers, our congressmen, our senators, our governors, our politicans and media moguls of every strain, to convince, if not convict them, of the growing threat to the White South African.”
“They must learn that we mean business and that we will not be dissuaded from this issue, or our task,” they continue.
Meanwhile, Occupy protesters, many wearing hoods and masks, told the press that they had come from the San Francisco Bay “to counter what they called a racist group affiliated with former Louisiana Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.”
Morris Gulett, a spokesperson for the South Africa Project, told the AP that the clash in Sacramento was unfortunate.
“It’s not surprising that the counter-protesters got in the way of the peaceful march we wanted it to be,” Mr. Gulett said. “Our intention was to conduct a peaceful march.”
Meanwhile, Occupy protesters like Ryan Stark, who claimed to be part of Occupy Sacramento, told the media that “he joined the protesters challenging the South Africa Project protesters because there needed to be a showdown.”
“I didn’t throw anything … but these sorts of demonstrations need to happen,” he said, referring to the counter protest. “They do have the right to say what they want, but we’re not going to let it fly.”
However, yesterday evening, spokespersons for Occupy Sacramento disavowed their involvement in the clash, saying “it neither sponsored nor was involved in a protest that injured police officers at a neo-Nazi protest at the State Capitol.”
According to a statement, Occupy Sacramento said, “We want to make it perfectly clear to news organizations reporting ‘Occupy’ was involved in alleged violence, that Occupy Sacramento neither sponsored nor was involved Monday. Occupy Sacramento adheres to a strict non-violence policy.”
“We do not fight police, even if they are the perpetrators of violence, as they have been at Occupy demonstrations. We have had 110 arrests since October 6 at Cesar Chavez Park,” they continued. “There has not been any violence on the part of our supporters in any of those arrests or protests.”
It remains a bit of a mystery why Occupy Oakland came all the way over from the East Bay to Sacramento. There is no mention on their website or their twitter account.
Vanguard Commentary
Because of their response, a group that was getting absolutely no media attention suddenly finds itself on the evening news and the morning newspapers across the country as the centerpiece in this battle.
Making it worse, from most accounts, it was the Occupy protesters that were the aggressors. The South African Project had protest permits and were not attacking either the police or counter protesters.
While the Vanguard may disagree with the message that the South African Project is trying to send, they have the First Amendment right in this country to express their views, no matter how misguided those views may be.
The Vanguard appreciates the efforts by the Occupy Sacramento organizers to disavow themselves from these actions and hopes that Occupy Oakland will follow suit.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Not the appropriate response on the part of the occupiers . Police showed incredible restraint . That said, in regards the racists, I hate those esso bees !
I know nothing about this South African Project, other than that they can’t spell, and that their message does appear to be racist in that they are only asking “whites” to join together. However, I find it a bit ironic that Occupy Oakland protestors, who want their voice heard, were attempting to silence the voice of another group. It doesn’t surprise me given my views of the “Occupy” protestors as a whole, but does show some of their true colors. They are predominantly concerned about “their” rights, desires and wishes, not those of others.
So much for “civil” disobedience! I would agree with newshoundpm on the following point:
[quote]However, I find it a bit ironic that Occupy Oakland protestors, who want their voice heard, were attempting to silence the voice of another group. It doesn’t surprise me given my views of the “Occupy” protestors as a whole, but does show some of their true colors. They are predominantly concerned about “their” rights, desires and wishes, not those of others.[/quote]
[quote]Meanwhile, Occupy protesters, many wearing hoods and masks, told the press that they had come from the San Francisco Bay “to counter what they called a racist group affiliated with former Louisiana Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.”[/quote]
Occupy protesters were wearing hoods/masks? Attacking people? How are they any different than the Ku Klux Klan, who they are professing to despise?
“Occupy protesters were wearing hoods/masks? Attacking people? How are they any different than the Ku Klux Klan, who they are professing to despise?”
ERM, good point. How can they complain about the cops attaking them when they pull crap like this?
[b]”Occupiers Clash With White [u]Supremacists[/u] At Capitol.”[/b]
I don’t have any quibble with your claim that these white Afrikaaners are probably racists. The history in that country is quite clear. That does not mean that they don’t have legitimate concerns. White farmers in South Africa have, in fact, been targetted over and over for murder, due to their skin color ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_farm_attacks[/url]). As many as 3,000 people have been killed.
If some black group from Europe, which had been targetted by whites for violent crimes, had a march in Sacramento and essentially said the same things the Afrikaaners said (switching white for black and black for white) would you be so quick to label them as racists or supremacists? I doubt it.
Imagine black people from Brussels wrote this: [quote] Right now the Belgium Project with this brand new website is launching a national campaign that will hopefully set in motion a domino effect, that, if effective, will unleash an outcry from black voices around the world that will thunder the heavens and ring in the ears of honest, decent, caring individuals in and outside of the political spectrum from around the world, which hopefully will shock the conscience, forging action, that will bring a stop to, the ATROCITY of GENOCIDE of blacks in Belgium and around the world.
We know, by looking at the political climate in the Americas and the European nations, that if the GENOCIDE of our race is permitted to continue in Belgium, then it will only be a matter of time before it reaches other European countries and American shores on the same scale.
As was previously stated, the Belgium Project is launching a campaign to draw concerned men and women to appeal to the masses of black citizens of the international community, to convince them to ban together, to form a human tidalewave, a tsunami of flesh, a flood of outrage that will command attention and action from our lawmakers, our congressmen, our senators, our governors, our politicans and media moguls of every strain, to convince, if not convict them, of the growing threat to the black Belgian. They must learn that we mean business and that we will not be dissuaded from this issue, or our task. [/quote] Not only would the Vanguard not label this rhetoric as racist, it likely would be bringing attention to the targetted murders of a minority group in a country like Belgium.
“How can they complain about the cops attaking them when they pull crap like this?”
I think you need to separate out what individuals do and what a group does. It is far from clear that this was an action that was sanctioned by the movements and it appears to be more of an action perpetrated by a bunch of individuals.
Rifkin: I don’t consider statements to be reciprocal in general and we can discuss that further if you wish. But while I may not call it as racist, I would find it somewhat odd.
[i]”I don’t consider statements to be reciprocal in general.”[/i]
Then perhaps you will consider my column on the war in Syria ([url]http://www.davisenterprise.com/opinion/opinion-columns/why-syria-is-not-another-libya/[/url])?
The most under-reported aspect of the civil war in Syria is that it pits a minority group, the Alawites (13%), who have long ruled over and oppressed the majority Sunnis (74%).
Regionally, the rebellion is being supported (at least rhetorically) by Sunni governments (especially those in Turkey and Saudi Arabia) and Sunni Islamists (including Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula).
The Syrian government has the active backing (including weapons and training) of the Shiite Iranian regime and the Shiite terrorist groups (including Hezbollah of Lebanon and the Hezbollah Brigades of Iraq).
[img]http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4e2461a3ccd1d59443330000/syria-civil-war.jpg[/img]
[quote]I think you need to separate out what individuals do and what a group does. It is far from clear that this was an action that was sanctioned by the movements and it appears to be more of an action perpetrated by a bunch of individuals. [/quote]
How convenient a way to think of it…
“How convenient a way to think of it…”
ERM..LOL..Exactly the same thing I thought….Do you think David and other liberals would give the Tea Party any such leeway?
ERM and rusty
If you do not think it important to separate out the actions of individuals from those of groups, do you think that all Tea Party activists should be judged by the apparent confusion of the gentleman who held up the sign reading ” Keep the governments hands off my Medicare” ?
To medwoman: I personally don’t think the Occupy movement is that cohesive a group that they have a single agenda. I think they have always been a loosely coordinated group, that has felt free to disobey the law when convenient and at times have become violent. Not for one minute have I ever believed the entire Occupy movement has had one cause, one ideal, one agenda. For instance, the UCD students IMO were not really a part of the Occupy movement, but co-opted the Occupy movement to complain about student tuition hikes (and rightly so). But those same students had been complaining about tuition hikes long before the Occupy movement got started. If you remember, some of those UCD students tried to go onto I-80 and stop traffic. So much for “civil disobedience”!
[i]” I think they have always been a loosely coordinated group, that has felt free to disobey the law when convenient and at times have become violent.”[/i]
I think Elaine’s point here is quite smart. MEDS might think that this lawbreaking on the part of some Oakland Occupiers was not representative of the group or authorized by it. Yet the very core of “the Occupation” is the idea that the laws don’t apply to the Occupiers. In every single instance of the various Occupations, these groups have taken over property–public and private–which did not belong to them and their doing so was illegal. They could have chosen to peacefully protest within the confines of the law. They chose not to. They therefore, in my opinion, do not deserve the benefit of the doubt in this case.
“Do you think David and other liberals would give the Tea Party any such leeway?”
And yet ironically I expressed the view that the South African project had the first amendment right to speak and that the Occupiers here were wrong. I simply chose not to indict the entire Occupy movement based on this incident, in part because of messages from some in the leadership disavowing this action.
I understand Elaine’s point and Rich Rifkin’s point but there is a difference between civil disobedience and violence and a line was crossed in this case that I don’t think has been crossed previously.
I would like to add a further distinction in assessing the types of civil disobedience employed. I believe there is a moral distinction to be made between passive resistance such as going limp when confronted with a directive by the police to leave, and attacking someone physically.
Both are against the law. The former may be in some instances morally justifiable, the latter never is. I know that there are some of you who do not make this distinction and feel that the law should never be broken. I disagree. I feel that history provides us with many laws that were so unjust that the only moral act was to break them.
[quote]I understand Elaine’s point and Rich Rifkin’s point but there is a difference between civil disobedience and violence and a line was crossed in this case that I don’t think has been crossed previously.[/quote]
So you are okay if the protestors park on your front lawn? For as long as they so choose? Even when they start defecating/urinating on your lawn, cause rats to start invading your property, and draw crime onto your land?
[i]”Both are against the law. The former may be in some instances morally justifiable, the latter (violence) never is.[/i]
I generally agree with this opinion when we are talking about a free democratic system where average people are free to associate and can legally and peacefully voice their grievances and be heard.
I think our biggest problem is political-correctness (e.g. white guilt) causing a dysfunctional social response that lowers the “good behavior” expectation bar for people belonging to certain protected groups. This soft bigotry of low expectations makes violence more acceptable, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy of polarization and bias as it maintains the halo of “difference” that would otherwise be nonexistent or at least immaterial. There are common expectations for decency and civility that should transcend any and all labels we can assign to any individual or any group. It does not matter if it is a white sheet, or a dark sweatshirt hoodie, covering the head of the perp behaving inappropriately.
Until we rid ourselves of this tendency to view the world through race-tinted glasses, there will always be too much violence from those that are led to believe their actions are justified, and from those that believe they must behave similarly in opposition.
“So you are okay if the protestors park on your front lawn? For as long as they so choose? Even when they start defecating/urinating on your lawn, cause rats to start invading your property, and draw crime onto your land?”
I must have missed where we were talking about trespassing onto citizen’s private property.
“I must have missed where we were talking about trespassing onto citizen’s private property.”
Comeon David, you know what she was getting at. As you always say, YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT!
Jeff
And I feel that when bigotry and intolerance are truly eliminatedfrom our society, this will cease to be an issue at all. That day has not arrived.
meds: I think until and unless we learn to recognize basic and fundamental human nature separate from true manifestations of organized and institutionalized bigotry, we will perpetuate violence.
Said another way, it is not a responsibility of one person to make another person feel cared for. When you set up that expectation, then you establish a false target of anger over a displaced feeling of rejection. You also destroy the needed lesson of self-sufficiency and the healing and developmental power of struggle and perseverance. By going so far to “help” those you see as needing help, you erase their opportunity for learning self-help. You also create reciprocal feelings of anger in others over a perception of unfair advantage.
The civil rights movement is over. There is no achievable panacea for people with differences living in perfect harmony. Humans will always be critical of differences. But skin color is no longer one that should get any press.
[quote]I must have missed where we were talking about trespassing onto citizen’s private property.[/quote]
Public parks are everyone’s front lawn. When Occupiers “in protest” take over public parks, that means the public cannot use them – and it is the public that paid for them. It is neither fair nor just to allow public parks to be taken over by protestors for an indefinite period of time as if they are squatters, and in addition breed crime, filth and an infestation of pestilence. Once you start down that road, then anyone can protest anything and take over a public park, pitch a tent, and remain there forever. There is a big difference between using a public park for a brief protest under time/place/manner restrictions, and parking oneself indefinitely for however long one feels like it.
And implicit in the comment we were not talking about private property is the recognition you would not want such activity taking place on your front lawn. So you should not want it to take place on the people’s front lawn either…
Jeff
We will just have to fundamentally disagree on this point. I believe that one legitimate function of a society is for us to take care of each other.
If we are not willing to support one another as needed we Jose a basic function of our humanity. Recognizing that competitiveness is part of our nature is no excuse for trying to pretend that cooperation and compassion are not equally apart of our nature. We simply value those separate parts differently.
Meds: The question is “need”. What does a person really need?
What they really need is to figure out what they want and then figure out how to go get it.
I’m sure you are familiar with the term “codependency”.
Jeff
I am very familiar with that term. I am also familiar with the concepts of “family” and “village” and “cooperation”. As I have mentioned to you before, the game “Win All You Can” frequently used at leadership training sessions demonstrates the strength of a cooperative model. If you are not familiar with the exercise, you can Google it under game theory. My point is that my vision of a social group, be it a family, a village, a state or a nation is that it’s true strength lies not in competition alone, but in an appropriate balance between competition and collaboration. One cannot claim that there is not an imbalance between these two forces when we have both billionaires and children living on the street in the same communities.
You and I just seem to draw different lines regarding what constitutes an appropriate cooperative group.
For example, we probably would both agree that within a family, we would consider it immoral to allow one child to become malnourished because he was weaker than his siblings and therefore could not grab as much food. We would probably ensure he got his share even if that meant helping him to get it.
We might agree that in a small village devastated by an earthquake, it would be immoral for a family whose house was unscathed not to, at least temporarily shelter a family whose home was demolished.
So where do we part company Jeff? I believe that a rich, exceptional nation, which you repeatedly state we are, has an obligation to protect and provide for its weakest members as well as to provide opportunity for all. I believe that our greatness should be judged not only by the opportunities that we provide to the strongest among us, but also by how well we treat the weakest. In my opinion, we score very highly on the first measure, and very poorly on the second.
meds: I draw this line with capable adults. Children are a completely different situation because they are in 100% development mode and they are reliant on adults. Elderly are also not in this box because they reach a point where they don’t have the capacity to develop and are reliant on other adults.
Related to capable adults, I never have a problem with temporary help that is warranted. What I have a problem with is perpetual help that trains away self-sufficiency and destroys self-determination. It locks in generations of families into poverty.
Science is starting to understand how behavior traits are passed on from generation to generation. A recent article I read explains that children will be genetically programmed to be less ambitious as their parents are trained to expect handouts as a way of life. From a political perspective, Democrats benefit from a larger population of people trained to expect handouts. There is the destructive codependency.
A society has to accept winners and losers so that the whole is better served. Just like a company has to promote strong performers and shed weak performers in order to survive. New employees have to strive and work harder to meet the performance expectation. Trying to force equal outcomes dumbs-down the entire system. It eventually causes the system to fail taking everyone down with it. The correct approach is to create copious opportunity and robust training and development services. Then it should be every man and woman competing for his/her climb up the ladder of happiness and prosperity. Cooperation is part of the formula for effective competition… it is not mutually exclusive from competition.
Jeff
“The correct approach is to create copious opportunity and robust training and development services. Then it should be every man and woman competing for his/her climb up the ladder of happiness and prosperity. Cooperation is part of the formula for effective competition… “
We truly do see the world from very different perspectives. For me, a more correct approach would be to provide copious opportunity and robust training and developmental services and then encourage every man and woman to engage cooperatively to build a society that provides the greatest rewards possible for all. I believe that maximal success would be achieved in a society that is not determined to divide the world into winners and losers, but rather to expect contribution from each member and to respect each members contribution.
[quote]expect contribution from each member and to respect each members contribution[/quote]
I expect the 50% of people [approx.] who pay no federal income tax to contribute their fair share. And I expect even more from siad subset who receive a federal refund to respect my posture.