By. Pouyan Baneshat
Some
members of the Occupy Los Angeles (OLA) decided to organize an action, called
Chalk Walk, which was meant to protest a slew of arrests in June. People who had been arrested were
chalking on the sidewalks and they were not engaged in any sort illegal activities.
In
the Occupy LA meeting beforehand, people said our goals were: to have fun, stay safe, speak out, stand up,
reach out, make friends and chalk.
The
police department had clearly a different agenda. The police, and not
Occupiers, shut down the street, and angry members of the crowd, not Occupiers,
were the ones to throw projectiles at police. LAPD thus started a riot! Most
OLA people had actually left the streets, for another location, when
the riot started.
Nevertheless, the
actions had its positive and negative aspects for OLA. At least three old time
occupiers and 14 members of the public were arrested. One person was charged
with assault on an officer with a deadly weapon. Past experiences has taught us that the arrest of a small number people is often counterproductive for the activist. The arrestees
get charged and convicted and sometimes they face jail time for bogus charges. More often, the activists get entangled with the tedious
and usually corrupt legal system and result is rarely to our benefit.
After all you cannot have a revolution with all the revolutionaries in jail.
The most
positive reaction to chalk-walk was from the people who were on the ground. These included the art loving and outgoing Angelenos, some of the painters and gallery owners. Stereotypically, these are the
people who generally have leftist and progressive political ideologies. They
were very receptive to the ideas of the OWL and as soon as these
people heard that LAPD had brought a few hundred cops to the streets for arresting people just for chalking on the sidewalks, they were outraged.
It would
have been very useful, if Occupy people had more pamphlets to pass around. And
bring awareness to the public about the Occupy General Assembly and other OLA
actions. Unfortunately, most Occupy people did not have any pamphlets to pass
around. By the way, this is another indication that the OLA was not there to protest or start a riot.
The most negative aspect of the event was the lies
perpetuated by by the mass media about the event. Many people know that
the corporate media are a primary vehicle for promoting
false news perpetuated by Politicians
and organizations like LAPD. But the coverage of the events is nonetheless
very important and television is the primary source of the corporate
capitalist discrimination and propaganda. In this case both ABC channel 7 and KTLA channel 5, grotesquely lied to the people and MSNBC covered the
event only for 26 seconds.
Channel 5 and 7 claimed that occupy had attacked
police with bottles. They also claimed that OLA had started the riot. They claimed that LAPD had asked people people to keep off the streets. However, they miserably failed to report the news or question the police
about why, when, and how these demands were made? How was this massage
communicated to Occupy Los Angeles. Was the mass media used to communicate
this massage or did a couple of officers stopped by at the CCA
to discuses this issue with OLA? Based on what evidence did they anticipate
a riot in the streets? Why was the taxpayers money wasted by
bringing a few hundred anti-riot police to the street to arrest people for chalking? Of course, these are the
questions that
should have been thoroughly examined before reporting the LAPD's lies on the air.
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Although, the chalk-walk event was even covered by the faraway
BBC
Persian, the mass media in general as usual lied monumentally and misled
the public.
In the
aftermath of the chalk-walk, on Tuesday, July 17, members of OLA went to the police
commission and asked to investigate the unnecessary force used to disperse
people who were engaged in an innocuous act of chalking on the sidewalk. Here, I have to ask the OLA, whatever happened to not speaking with the police? Which bring a new set of
questions into mind? Does OLA want to distress LAPD or do we, as a global
movement, want to bring an end to corporate capitalism and the rule of the one
percent of the society? I believe we should bring people’s attention to the
real issues like class struggle and at once create class consciousness.
Chalk-walk was great but it is not our ultimate purpose to chalk the world. Let us do something
new. Lets fundamentally change the society. In order to do that we need to
think about how we want to achieve the revolution. And what kind of a society do we want
to build?
Our feud
is not with LAPD or LA City Hall, or
the mendacious Los Angeles Mayor or even the corrupt CCA. We want to change and
replace an entire corrupt system which is based on corruption, crony capitalism
and imperialist intervention. Troubling LAPD or the city hall officials maybe
and most certainly is a excellent tactic but it should be a short term strategy
to reach a particular goal. LAPD has been targeting the OLA to identify and arrest as many people as possible, so they would have a full profile of everyone in the movement. Let us remember why and where the whole Occupy
Wall-Street movement started.
Chalk-walk
was great and I loved being there. I really enjoyed it but at the same time I
am aware of the fact that sidewalk chalking is not my ultimate purpose in life.
We want a fundamental change and revolution of minds and class structure in the
society. Let’s think about a great society structured upon humanity, justice
and freedom. Let us think as never before.
