baudot

I miss Berlin already. My last night there, I took another walk to pick up a couple books. My route carried me past Unter den Linden again, the old tree-lined boulevard through the heart of the city into the park. Before that, there was Alexanderplatz, the plaza in East Berlin where protestors had gathered, chanted, sung, and finally cheered as The Wall fell. That night, someone had chalked "We Are the 99%" on the concrete. I smiled to see it written there.

Last night I got back to Oakland. The news tells me police broke up the Occupy protests in our downtown that same night using tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets. I couldn't remember any reports of East German police using tear gas, stun grenades, or rubber bullets against the Alexanderplatz protestors in '89.

The night before, nearly 100 protestors were arrested in downtown Oakland. At the rate protestors are being arrested nationwide, we are a few days away from the number of jailed protestors eclipsing the number of people who died in the Twin Towers attack.