Oakland's 1934 Lesson for 'Occupiers'

It is a volatile moment in the San Francisco Bay Area: galvanized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the injury an Iraq War veteran suffered when police tried to clear Occupy Oakland from the streets, the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant III by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer, and a 2003 incident when police brutalized Iraq War opponents, activists are attempting a citywide strike Wednesday, when they'll try to disrupt commerce and shut down Oakland's port. "At meetings of Occupy Oakland, many of the people I spoke with watched the unfolding occupation with sympathy--but just watched," Gabriel Thompson writes in The Nation. "It took the raid, the images of tear gas clouds and a bloodied Scott Olsen to get them into the streets." Said Oakland Councilwoman Patricia Kernighan, "This is sort of a perfect storm of dysfunction."