It reads:

To the Citizens of Oakland:

As mayor of Oakland it is my great relief to make this announcement to the public. First of all, I offer my sincere apology for ordering the violent repression of the Occupy Oakland encampment in front of city hall in the morning of Tuesday, October 25, 2011. It reached the height of absurdity to use the rationale of public health and safety to justify this, and I have had a change of heart.

The Occupy Oakland general assembly has called for a general strike on Wednesday, November 2, 2011, and I heartily endorse this call. The Occupy Oakland encampment was just the kind of experiment in mutual aid and direct democracy that is needed. And a general strike could bring this to a new level. In fact, I want to up the ante to show I’m on the right side of history again.

Oakland was the last city in the US to have a general strike, in 1946, and it was known as a “work holday.” This harks back to the first call for a general strike  in 1832: William Benbow’s pamphlet, “Grand National Holiday,” in which he called for a month-long strike. I proose we do that! Now, I know a common objection to the strike call is, “who can afford to take a day off work in these days?” Well, sometimes to be realistic you have to demand the impossible, 90% of the work done is this society is useless toil. We can do away with that, and turn most of the work that really needs to be done into playful past-times. And there’s plenty of wealth to go around. We just have to share it.

Many of you may be asking, “what is the point of a general strike?” Shouldn’t we focus on getting the banks regulated?” “How can we have a strike without demands?” Well, I’ve been won over by the Occupy Movement’s bold insistence on not making demands of authoritarian power structures. All our problems are so inseparable. The system needs a total overhaul. We need an unprecedented adventure in social experimentation that will banish authoritarian power structures altogether: I say ban the banks and abolish money. The people are breaking out of their acquiescence. They can make decisions over their own lives. The Occupy Oakland encampment prefigured a way of life that makes the status quo obsolete. Instead of an exploitative system based on the buying and selling of things and our tim, let us create a life of ease, gaeity and pleasure for all, as William Benbow originally suggested. Let us not only shut the city down. Let us take it over and run it in a wholly new way. Together we can make every day a holiday.

Sincerely,

Mayor Jean Quan

After mayor Jean Quan had the first Occupy Oakland destroyed, this fake apology later was going around on her letterhead. A lot of people believed it. There was a real letter apology she had written, which I read first, so I kept vouching for the fake because I hadn’t seen it yet. May be the most I’ve ever enjoyed spreading a lie.

The best part of the letter is actually “For more information, contact the office of Jean Quan at 510-238-3141.” Contact the office indeed.