The breakup seems necessary after such a passionate escalation in tactics over a relatively short period of time. The period of infatuation and political lust that intensified leading up to the November 2 General Strike ended quickly, and many fell out of love after windows started breaking.



This period of reflection and reconsideration is resulting in a multi-front movement that engages the public with spectacular shows of force at the ports, and with quiet and plausibly deniable ones in the form of smashed locks on empty bank-owned buildings.

In Oakland's occupation there are some hands, and there are some fists.

***

Occupy organizer Krystof Lopaur, 35, worked on the December 12 coordinated West Coast port shutdown, which disrupted port activities up and down the coast and catalyzed solidarity protests across the country. In Oakland, Occupy disrupted and cancelled three of the ILWU workers shifts and blocked trucking in efforts that the port says cost them, workers, and the city of Oakland $4 million. Nearly 4,500 people shut down the Port of Oakland in the evening. Krystof calls the action Occupy Oakland's "second big act" after the November 2nd General Strike and one-shift port shutdown. "And this is where it's at," he says of the future.

"There's a lot of stuff that we're doing that's interesting. We're kind of probing around for where we're effective," Krystof reflected. "And I think where we're effective is where we get the most pushback."

The shutdown was a huge show of force by Occupy and union workers that many expected would be met with a huge show of force in return from the police. This sort of confrontation is meant to force the state's hand, to create, as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." Occupy may be less interested in negotiation, but they are no less interested in creating that crisis. But except for some 6 a.m. baton scuffles, law enforcement presence was minimal, even if the shutdown resulted in the city council's rules committee pushing the city to use "whatever lawful tools" to prevent any future port action. (The resolution did not pass.)

The shutdown was grand and visible. It contrasts markedly with the other threads of action that have spun out of Occupy Oakland. Take foreclosure defense, in which occupiers set up camps at or in properties scheduled to be taken over by the banks. The most high-profile effort occurred at 18th and Linden in West Oakland, when a lot owner, Gloria Cobb allowed occupiers to take over the space. It made the local news and seemed like it could become a new and successful tactic for activists. It was a highly visible political symbol, one of Occupy Oakland's last above-ground hurrahs. And it was also one of its greatest failures.