Urban Assault Vehicles

What is in a name? Whether 'tis Desert Shield or Desert Storm, 'tis all but a tick of the hands of a clock. I think Shakespeare wrote that. Maybe it was me. It was probably me. I find this kind of government/corporate nomenclature to be highly amusing, but not in the "ha ha" way. That was a long time ago, but it still rings in my head, so much so that it set off alarms when I started hearing about "Urban Shield" here in Oakland. If you're not familiar with this yearly festival of militarization, it is "a  comprehensive, full-scale regional preparedness exercise assessing the overall Bay Area UASI Region's response capabilities related to multi-discipline planning, policies, procedures, organization, equipment and training." It also features a number of different vendors who are on hand to sell their wares to police departments interested in the latest in, well, Urban Shields. This includes companies like 3M, who we assume will be there to show off the latest in Post-It technology. Others, like Aircover Integrated Solutions, probably aren't there to sell office products. 

Nope. They are there - here - to sell hardware. The kind of hardware that makes people get all worked up about the militarization of the police. Police in the streets. The streets of Oakland. 

How did the streets of Oakland respond? As they often do: with a demonstration. Protesters blocked streets downtown in the area near the hotel where Urban Shield was holding forth. They probably weren't there to protest the presence of All Star Dips, the dry-mix sauce company there to promote their line of "Delicious gourmet snack food products." They were there to tell the guns and ammo crowd to pack up and leave. 

Again, this is ironic, considering the streets in which they made their protest. The streets of Oakland which continue to experience unprecedented numbers of homicides each year, not to mention the aforementioned demonstrations, which don't always remain as peaceful as organizers draw them up. Ask Jean Quan about that one. She's the mayor of Oakland who experienced a flurry of bad behavior on both sides of the barricade back in 2011, during the Occupy demonstrations. There was much discussion, at that time, about the use of police force to quell the disturbances. And lawsuits. It may be incredibly jaundiced of me to suggest that the pronouncement from the mayor stating that Urban Shield is no longer welcome here in Oakland has something to do with this being an election year. Or maybe it's just common sense. I can't say for sure, but in the meantime, Praise the Urban Shield and pass the Broccoli Cheese dip.