Why Occupy Portland Encampment Failed

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Will Occupy Portland camps be missed?

I think that the Occupy Portlandmovement which is in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street has an excellent message and that it came together for a very important reason and that is the lack of jobs, student loan debt and corruption in politics while the 99% or Majority of Americans are working hard to survive without any hope of achieving the “American Dream”.

The question is why is it that Occupy Portland which received perhaps the best treatment from City Government of all the Occupied Cities now under eviction notice? The simple answer is that a mixture of people bent on vandalizing police cars, setting up Molotov cocktails and selling and using drugs ruined it for the entire movement. I think there was a fundamental breakdown on Occupy Portland’s part and Portland Police. I think the City allowed the Lownsdale Square and Chapman Park to turn into what almost looked like a scene from “Mad Max” or better yet a “Criminal Enterprise Free-Zone” where people could sell and use drugs and get totally wasted with little concern of being arrested.

I think if the protesters of Occupy Portland wanted to keep the camps for the long-term like Occupy Wall Street is with Zuccotti Park in New York then they needed to be a tad bit more firm with troublemakers and work harder to keep things civil and legal. It is my hope that we might see a second phase of Occupy Portland with some solid goals and better organization because even though Occupy Portland accomplished being left alone by the City of Portland for so long they ended up not being able to maintain the relationship with the City.

I hope to see a peaceful end to the camps and further I hope that the occupiers will find some other way to continue the movement which does have merit. It is important to note that the arrest the Portland Police made of a man who made some makeshift bomb of a Molotov Cocktail showed that it was not in fact a local Oregonian who caused trouble in the incident but instead the man was from California.

In closing I wan’t to share this video of a protestor aggresively assaulting and yelling at a KGW news crew: