*Particularly* with reference to last week’s BART-related demonstrations. The chain of logic used to justify the destruction wreaked during those riots is almost too flimsy to be worth pointing out (but I would start by pointing out that it was a BART policeman, not an Oakland policeman who shot Oscar Grant). The only productive end that riot served was to alert Oakland and BART officials that there is a seething rage that has built up in response to the decades of social ills that Oaklanders have had to put up with…and that it is inchoate and indiscriminate in how it becomes channeled, making it far too dangerous to be palliated by old patterns of ineffectual appeasement.

We all know that, in the specific, BART officials need to bring more transparency to their police force and their investigation into the Oscar Grant shooting. We all know that, in general, Oakland has been teetering on a sort of ledge for far too long. We know that officials of both administrations need to do much more than what they have been doing.

But we all knew this already, without the thousands of dollars of damage that was perpetrated by “protestors”…with the victims of that damage not being BART or Oakland police or officials, but everyday citizens struggling with the same inequities and outrages the protester are ostensibly combating.

Like Ocie says, if they really wanted to target BART and pressure them to alter their opaque and slow investigation, their cause would have been far more productive had it been channeled toward a boycott of BART. They seem to have never learned, or at least forgot, the lessons of Montgomery in 1955.

While I will always agree with protesters’ right to demonstrate, all the public/private defacement in my city was unnecessary and misguided. For someone to attempt to justify their stupid-ass actions of said defacement by contrasting it to losing a life is completely inane, lacks any critical thinking and is hella fucking dumb.

Sadly, the only thing most of these public officials and executives seem to understand are money and votes (and the votes still circle back to money) I think the protest would have been much more effective if they, somehow (whether it be keep the doors from closing or blocked the BART gates, managed to severely delay trains at every station everyday until the investigation was completed, or for that matter started. We also need to inact term limits for elected offices besides mayor. People aren’t being held accountable, and it’s difficult to get someone new in there.

*Gets off of soapbox*

(It WAS a beautiful night yesterday. Oakland California FTW)