The end seems to be near for the Los Angeles leg of the Occupy movement.  On late Friday afternoon, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, flanked by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, told the press that the encampment around City Hall must be taken down by Sunday midnight or the LAPD will take over the task,

To be fair, the Mayor's tone was anything but threatening or aggressive. A former trade unionist and former head of the local ACLU board, the Mayor paid warm homage to the goals and sentiments of the OWS movement but said it was "unsustainable" to maintain the encampment of a few hundred protesters indefinitely. In his view, two months was enough.

There was an immediate reaction from inside the L.A. camp as documented here. I had a couple of friends who listened in on Friday's General Assembly and they basically told me you need to be an Sanskrit interpreter to figure out what was really decided. These folks aren't kidding about this being a leaderless movement. Directionless might also apply.  What could be garnered is that some protesters are just gonna quietly split when the cops show up. Some will sit down, passively resist, and hopefully no knuckleheads from the RCP or the Black Bloc will start chucking bottles and rocks at the cops.

The city and the LAPD, to date, have treated the OLA camp pretty much with kid gloves and it seems to be a point of pride among them that they are going to avoid the sort of Cops Gone Wild stuff we've seen in NY, Oakland, Atlanta and Davis.  The Mayor has promised there will be no surprise "raid," that the shut down will be calm and patient, and the social workers will be on hand to provide public services for those in need. The city is also providing free parking so people can gather up their tents. And 50 to 100 beds are being made available for the homeless who have joined the camp, which numbers about 3-400 or so.

All in all, it's not a bad deal. Indeed, I think the city may be giving these folks a graceful exit strategy. Okay, you can gather your rotten tomatoes and jagged rocks to throw my way, but if **** I **** were a leader of this local, movement, I would declare victory, go home and abandon the camp before the cops even arrive.

(Slideshow by Alan Mittelstaedt shot Friday night)

As I have said repeatedly, the OWS and OLA movements have had quite a positive impact on pubic consciousness.  Chalk up that victory and now CAPITALIZE on it by doing some real organizing instead of beating on drums.

My fear, is that the rump group left at the City Hall steps may be determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  What is to be gained at this point by standing the ground against the cops and the city? More people show up to a well-organized wedding than the number currently camped out at OLA.  The "masses" are not participating.

What would be the point of even mass arrests? What principle is being defended?  This is not the Woolworth counter or Apartheid South Africa we're talking about where the fight for physical space is central to the core struggle. This is a public lawn on City Hall in the middle of the city which is theoretically open to everybody. I repeat, everybody.  OK, taking it over for a few weeks or in this case a few months might make sense to dramatize the issue of economic inequality. But the space itself means nothing. Well, it means a little bit. Like, how sympathetic would we be if the Tea Party decided to appropriate this public, common space for itself for an indefinite period? Not very.

Now we run the chance of a pointless confrontation on Monday morn when the LAPD will probably begin moving in. If it turns violent, it will grab headlines and polarize the public but will do nothing to help solve the underlying issue.  That issue is, of course, a complicated one and will take a generation or two sort out, if ever.  But you begin somewhere.

OWS was a great beginning. The end of that beginning is now at hand.

Nobody said it was going to be easy to change the world. Beating drums and turning the focus on cops is but a sideshow.