Held to answer

If you’re going to do something radical, wear Brooks Brothers.

You won’t just stop traffic, you’ll confound the status quo. Occupy Portland and the hundreds of other variations on New York’s Occupy Wall Street protest, need more ordinary middle-class employees. Many of them wear suits and are just as worried about America’s future.

The men and women who have pitched tents at Lownsdale Square and Chapman Square in downtown Portland look too much like a 60’s rerun, which is unfortunate because if you talk to some them, they defy political stereotyping. Except for one young man enthusiastically spray-painting signs for Ron Paul, I heard no other political endorsements during two visits.

Because many of the protesters look like hippies, it’s easy to dismiss them. And they appeared to be having too much fun.

“Seattle needs supplies” said one banner, listing some of Seattle’s needs: “Tarps, ropes, art supplies, rain gear … cigs, condoms.”

Yes, I know, that famous quote from Emma Goldman about not wanting a revolution she couldn’t dance to. I don’t think Goldman would’ve wanted a revolution that placed dancing first.

Occupy Portland needs more diversity. It needs the middle-aged parents of recent college graduates who can only find minimum-wage jobs. It needs the parents of high school graduates who can’t find jobs, can’t afford college and are afraid to incur school loans with no certainty of a job, let alone a career. It needs the over-age 50 professionals who have been discarded, not because they have nothing to offer, but because in the new economy experience doesn’t count – just how cheap your replacement is.

And the protest needs to strike its tents that cover the two parks. The tents, ranging from elaborate two-door models to many smaller Glacier’s Edge, REI and other brand-name outdoor shelter, are no threat to Wall Street.  Homeless camps are not the answer to financial corruption; they’re a diversion that opponents can seize on.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone said it’s time for Occupy Wall Street protesters to offer concrete solutions. He suggested five: break up monopolies; pay for your own bailouts; no public money for private lobbying; tax hedge-fund gamblers; change the way bankers get paid.

In Portland, protesters could raise two local issues and force state politicians to take note:

Last week, Gov. John Kitzhaber rescinded pay raises for supervising attorneys in the state Attorney General’s Office. Why would this be of concern to sympathizers of Occupy Wall Street?

Because these attorneys are not fat cats. These are the attorneys who go after white-collar criminals.

The guys playing guitar, drums and kazoos and juggling dirty tennis balls in Occupy Portland’s tent city are not going to file suit against former Bear Stearns & Co. for misrepresentations that cost Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund $17 million in losses.

The fellow on his knees shining sneakers in Chapman Square isn’t going to ban American Team Mortgage, Inc. from doing business in Oregon after it promised – but never delivered – loan modifications to Oregon homeowners.

And if, as KPTV reported, there is a registered sex offender living in Occupy Portland’s camp and he decides to assault someone, it will be a prosecuting attorney – from either the state or county – who will work to keep him from harming someone else.

The 1 percent who supposedly control the finances, the media and Congress must laugh when they see members of the 99 percent turn on each other and fight over pay raises that a hedge fund manager would regard as a pittance.

Why would Kitzhaber go after these salary increases? Especially since Attorney General John Kroger had already sought and received a waiver for the raises from the Department of Administrative Services? Kitzhaber stuck his nose in a state agency that’s been doing its job just to play politics.

Kitzhaber and his predecessor, Ted Kulongoski, have never been comfortable with Kroger, who made a name for himself in New York prosecuting major white-collar criminals including Enron. They especially don’t like his commitment to Measure 11, which increased prison sentences for the most serious felonies. In 1994 voters in every county supported it – that’s a huge chunk of 99 percenters. Following Measure 11, Oregon had the largest drop in violent crime in the nation between 1996 and 2002.

Kitzhaber and Kulongoski want to overturn Measure 11; they see the dollar signs attached to public safety and would rather spend them elsewhere. But they need a two-thirds vote of the state Legislature. Thus, the creation of the curiously named Commission on Public Safety, designed to justify that two-thirds vote.

At the commission’s first in-person meeting last month, Craig Prins, one of its advisors, tossed off this observation about why Oregon no longer needs Measure 11 now that it has shown it can reduce crime: “The poor and destitute are more apt to be victims of crime and have received the benefit of this drop in crime.”

That’s right. It’s the poor who are benefiting from Measure 11, so let’s get rid of it.

Kitzhaber, Kulongoski and Prins must have been pleased when they saw the photo this weekend on the OregonLive Web site of an Occupy Portland protester waving a sign: “Fund Schools Not Prisons.” As if people can’t have both public safety and schools.

Oregon’s Measure 11 has delivered on lowering crime; the billions the state has spent on education have not shown commensurate success in schools for reasons that politicians in both parties don’t want to address. (See “More Kids Left Behind”)

So here’s something Occupy Portland can do: Decamp from the downtown parks. Head over to Kulongoski’s Laurelhurst neighborhood or Kitzhaber’s Pearl District home (when he’s not at the governor’s residence in Salem). Tell them you think the poor (a growing demographic in Oregon) deserve as much public safety as those who live in comfortable neighborhoods.

If these brave public servants respond by calling the police, ask them what they’re afraid of.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons