“When we all heard about Trayvon and the tragic way he was killed, none of us could avoid thinking about Oscar Grant,” said Rabbi David Cooper of the Kehilla Community Synagogue on the Oakland Piedmont border, speaking from the platform where Occupy holds its general assembly meetings.

Trayvon Martin was the unarmed 17-year-old African-American boy in Florida who was shot dead three weeks ago while walking home to his father’s house in a gated community. The gunman was a self-proclaimed neighborhood watchman. Oscar Grant was, of course, the young man from Oakland who was shot dead while he lay, unarmed, on a BART station floor. The gunman was a BART police officer.

Rev. Phil Lawson, a Methodist minister and retired Interfaith Director of the East Bay Housing Organization, said, the killing of young Trayvor Martin was nothing short of lynching, “the lynching that we thought we had put behind us.”

Interfaith Occupy groups from around the country have been meeting at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley in recent days for a National Occupy Faith Conference. They had already planned to gather in Oakland at the site of the Occupy tent city and then the tragic slaying in Florida became the focus of the prayers and speeches.

Unitarian Universalist Minister Rosemary Bray-McNatt from New York told the approximately 150 people at the plaza that New York’s Union Square Park was also occupied. There, several thousand people gathered to march for Trayvon Martin.

In Oakland, as in New York and elsewhere, faith groups participated in the Occupy movements and often acted as buffers between police and protesters, trying to keep things peaceful. Still, the interfaith tent dwellers in Oakland and in most cities have been told to pack up and go away like other Occupy settlers.

Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock, Director of Oakland-based Faith Voices for the Common Good, said that although the Interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland was the last tent standing for a while after the Occupy site was dismantled, they too were told to go. They came back with umbrellas until authorities again told them to leave.

“Even though they made us take our tent away, some of us came down here with our occu-brellas. Then they said we couldn’t even stay here under our occu-brellas,” said Brock. ”So, we are back with our illegal occu-brellas and we are not going to leave,” she said, as she and many others at the gathering held umbrellas over their heads even though it was not raining. They also assembled a canopy that they said was a sacred space and religious sanctuary.

After a morning shift where little work happened, many workers were sent or kept home for the afternoon. LWU spokesman Craig Merilees told press that no workers were requested  for night work at the terminals because of the protest–and demonstrators cited this as proof of a shut-down.

Activity continued Monday inside the port — but without unloading or trucking–according to Port of Oakland staff. The Teamsters UNion and the ILWU did not sanction the strike, but Occupy media quoted many rank and file workers who said they supported the actions at the same time that union reps are being quoted saying that the  shutdown hurts low-paid truck drivers and blue-collar workers.

“Today’s disruptions have been costly to Port workers and their families in terms of lost wages and shifts, to Oakland and the region in terms of lost tax revenue, and to one of the most progressive Ports in the country in terms of draining already limited resources that should be focused on real solutions to the problems plaguing our economy,” Sandifur said Monday night in a statement to press.

Angela Davis and former Marine Scott Olsen, who was injured by police during an October demonstration, spoke at the 3 PM rally at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza.

Meanwhile, as of 9:30 PM, an Occupy Oakland General Assembly (GA) described by one attendee as “the biggest one ever,” had just finished.  Oakland resident Cynthia J posted on Facebook, “omg thousands of people at GA, no cops, (visible) they’re extending to 3am shift because of the cop violence at other ports today as was the original plan. They’re planning who can stay etc. Biggest GA ever, it’s amazing. Kind of chaotic & wow.”

• We have over $1.4 billion in debt and annual debt service payments of over $100 million a year for the foreseeable future, constraining the jobs we can create and investments we can make.
• Economic conditions at the Port have forced us to reduce our workforce by 40% over the last seven years.
• Air passenger volume is down over 30% since 2008.
• We are operating at just over 50% capacity at our seaport, while there is increasing competition from alternative shipping gateways around the country and the world.

In a statement posted on its website, the association explained its stance. “Teachers in Oakland teach the 99 percent and are themselves part of the 99 percent. This is evident in the cuts to education, healthcare, services, home foreclosures, etc. that we witness in Oakland on an ongoing basis. Part of teaching is advocating for our students in the broader context. We hope that linking our struggle to this movement that is getting worldwide attention will force policy changes that will benefit all of us.

The association asserted that the strike was legal and said it had met with the Oakland Unified School District, which employees its members, which include teachers, counselors, nurses, psychologists, librarians, speech pathologies, social workers and substitute teachers in K-12, early education and adult education facilities. “The OUSD said they will recognize use of personal days to support this action, provided a substitute teacher is secured,” the statement said.

Nevertheless, the statement warned that participants could still face discipline and a reducation in pay, OEA warned, but it pledged to work through any problems that employees encountered.

The OEA is affiliated with the National Education Association and the California Teachers Association.

Police tear-gassing crowds. Reports of protestors throwing bottles at cops. A local arm of a widespread movement garnering national attention. These aren’t new to the Bay Area, but back in the 1960’s it was Berkeley, not Oakland, where the action was. Occupy Oakland (and to a lesser extent Occupy San Francisco) have dominated the news this week, but Occupy Berkeley, which began October 8, has yet to make waves. City officials reportedly have said they have no immediate plans to break up the protest on the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, or the small campsite down the street at MLK Jr. Civic Center Park.

With a crowd of around 30 people each night for its general assemblies, the movement is dwarfed by the thousands who gather at Occupy Oakland. In fact, when Berkeley students and protestors at other Occupy movements are asked about it, the response is generally ignorance — “There’s an Occupy Berkeley?”

So why is the city and college that ignited the mass protests of the 60’s barely a blip on the radar now?

Aside from a handful of committed students, Cal has been largely uninvolved in Berkeley’s version of the national movement. Students had a variety of reasons for not attending the protests, ranging from too much schoolwork, to dissatisfaction with the movement’s disorganization.

“Unfortunately it’s not the 60’s –- there is wide support, but the students are pre-occupied with midterms,” said Larry Silver, a Berkeley resident who has been attending the general assemblies since they began. Bo-Peter Laanen, one of the student organizers, offered his insights: “There’s nothing pressuring students. A lot of them don’t realize after they graduate there won’t be jobs for them.”

However, some students did express anxiety about finding jobs after graduation. But for them their concern only motivated them to work harder in school – not to protest the harsh economic times. Senior Bryce Thornberg mentioned the pressure at Berkeley to get a job that makes money. And Alex Taitague, a junior, expressed a desire to get his money’s worth out of Berkeley, “I’m already going to this school. I have to get the most out of the system before I can reform it.”

And for another segment of the Berkeley population, the political will is there, but personal circumstances prevent participation. Ruben Canedo, a 5th year undergrad, commented, “A lot of students, they’ve got to work two or three jobs to send money home for food and rent. Just because you don’t see their physical attendance, that doesn’t mean they’re not in
support.”

The demands and pressures on students today are one key difference impacting scant student involvement in the Occupy movement versus the robust participation in protests during the 60’s.

Peter Dale Scott, a professor at Berkeley from the 1960’s until the 1990’s and one of the first anti-war speakers on campus, commented that during that time, “a lot of students were thrown out of university for their activities, but it wouldn’t represent the same catastrophic loss that it would now.”

With the average undergraduate student budget (for residents) at $31,534,increasing rent prices in Berkeley, and harsh economic times causing students to need to send money back home – the economic pressures on students are significantly higher.

Jeffrey Lustig, a professor emeritus at Sacramento State and a UC Berkeley student during the 1960’s, who was significantly involved in the free speech movement, commented on the degree to which obligations facing students have changed: “I thought nothing about quitting school for a year and painting houses in SF and hitchhiking around the country. But the pressure on students these days is much more intense.”

In addition, many students see the campus as simply being a far less radical place than the stereotype of Berkeley suggests, partly because of fee increases, which have increased focus on making money post-college.

Sophomore Jenna Pinkham, who has been attending the protests, spoke to a student in her math class who declared: “Why would I want to occupy? I want to be one of the 1%.” Mireille Nassif, a senior, gave a similarly telling impression of her classmates. ”They come in to become corporate products rather than to be part of a local movement.”

Todd Gitlin, a current professor of Journalism and Sociology at Columbia who taught at Berkeley through the 80’s and 90’s, sees the current trend towards corporate culture as one that has been brewing for a while. He commented that as early as the 1990’s the atmosphere at Berkeley diverged from the tendency towards counterculture that was prevalent during the 60’s, “The dominant tone was we’re lucky to be here, we are winners and we intend to remain winners. We don’t have time for diversion or hijinks.”

It’s possible that if the Occupy Berkeley movement develops a clearer set of goals and demands, it could gain more traction, as students did express frustration with its lack of obvious objectives. But ultimately, Occupy Berkeley’s meager showing is a concrete sign that Berkeley’s role as a bastion of liberal radicalism has fallen hard since its glory days during the 60’s. Gitlin declared, “Berkeley’s held on to this reputation for decades long after it was obsolete.”

Cross posted from NAM: http://newamericamedia.org/2011/10/occupy-berkeley-why-so-quiet.php