do the right thing -- and refrain from damaging independent, local businesses.I wish I could buy a beer for the student who responded to a police directive to 'go home' by pointing out, "We are home."
Were I the owner of a newly open-air chain restaurant in Oakland -- or the landlord of any potentially open-air chain restaurant anywhere in the East End -- I would be calling the mayor's office to request a revised approach for Friday's festivities. If students wish to assemble peaceably, a strategy of provoking them to riot seems to have been discredited.
You kids be careful out there. Beware surveillance cameras. No distinctive clothing. And it's only good if no one -- on any side -- gets hurt.
3 comments:
For the most part, I say "hear, hear". But I don't see the need to damage anyone's property, be they national or local.
Those "chains" may indeed be scumbags (you'd have to look at them on a one-by-one basis), but locals work there - profits leave town, sure, but wages, as meager as they may be, stay. If they have to close, even for a day to clean up, you're possibly preventing someone who takes the bus from the East End from getting paid for the day. This seems counter-productive.
If students wish to assemble peaceably, a strategy of provoking them to riot seems to have been discredited.
You do realize that about 4 people who aren't students or protesters believe the police provoke the riot in any meaningful way.
I agree with your sentiment that the police in Oakland provoked a bunch of student onlookers. Pitt is in session, students gather all the time on campus and for the police to storm in and start pushing/hitting students with batons and gas is inexcusable. Windows in Oakland were only smashed AFTER the police stepped in.
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