Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Politics Occupy Nashville: the Little Encampment That Could
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:37 PM
Here, protesters are hunkering down for the holidays. When the governor and first lady switched on the lights on the Capitol’s Christmas tree this week, there they were like Santa’s merry elves milling about on the Legislative Plaza in the seventh week of their occupation.
Protesters feel so at home they've been flying kites and square dancing. As Pithster Steve Haruch posts below, Occupy Nashville now is drawing national attention as a man-bites-dog oddity.
“I feel like in a lot of ways … Nashville is starting to become maybe a bit of a tender spot or a hearthstone for other occupiers,” one demonstrator, Samantha Blanchard, told MSNBC. “We’re like the little heartbeat, the little southern hospitality of the movement.”
To paraphrase our favorite aide to the governor, Thaddeus E. Watkins III: Fun times!
For this, Occupy Nashville can thank Gov. Bill Haslam. His ham-handed attempt to clear the plaza boomeranged. At the start, Occupy Nashville was a few crust punks and old hippies. Now, protesters claim a core group of nearly 100, with maybe 400 part-time supporters, and there’s a federal court injunction protecting the encampment—at least until sometime next year.
If Haslam had only waited and thought things through a bit, the public response might have been more to his liking. Since his blunder, police in other cities have shocked the nation by wantonly pepper-spraying protesters. By comparison, Tennessee’s troopers were teddy bears. Some of those zip-ties went on too tight, but that’s about as brutal as it got. Still, Haslam came across as a mean-spirited dolt. If he moved in today with the same show of force, the media might hail him as a humanitarian. In politics, remember, timing is everything.
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Comments (35)
Showing 1-35 of 35
Well past time to kick the squatters out tout de suite.
When will Haslam grow a pair?
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The occupiers are harmless know-nothings. They aren't organized enough to hold jobs, so it is unreasonable to expect they could organize anything resembling a coherent movement.
Now that the Democrats have figured out that the occupiers are more of an embarrassment than an exploitable group of losers, the media will lose interest and they will dry up and blow away.
Leave them alone and they'll eventually find some other location to sponge off. Only one out of every 5-10 tents has anyone in it anyway...
When will Haslam grow a pair to do what, exactly? Ignore the federal court injunction - the one mentioned in this very post you are commenting on - barring him from kicking them out? Ignore these people's constitutional right to petition and assembly? Haslam's magical testicle growth won't make him King of Tennessee.
Looking at that scene, I think we need a new definition of litter, and respect for the lives of trees. Killing trees for Christmas is like some primitive sacrificial rite.
Damn it, I knew it! Some nut would say something about the fine Christmas tree. That tree is happy to have been selected.
The picture of the hallowed tent city of the OCW'ers looks a bit pathetic to me. Perhaps all the SCENE staff could bundle up and spend a few nights, make it look more significant, more tents and all.
This weekk's NEW YORKER has a long article about some unfortunate who got the call, packed up and left Seattle for Gotham. He had a hard time it seemed to me, but I wanted all to know about the story. I just do not get the feeling anyone on this board or at SCENE headquarters is really doing much to help.
Nice corporate made tents for the most part, Idiots plan and simple occupy them.
Haslam cannot kick the Occupiers out. For one thing unlike other protests which are on city property in other areas, the Occupy Nashville encampment is on Federal property, which means if Haslam wants the Occupiers out he has to first ask the President (who supports the occupy movement rather openly) and then the President has to send the military to remove them from the property, HOWEVER, The people there would have to, you know, be breaking the law before that happens. They are on public property, Legislative plaza is no different than the sidewalk right in front of it. Therefore they are not tresspassing.
Oh, and to the person who called occupiers, what was it, "Harmless Know Nothings"? They clearly know a lot more than you do if they can all see the corruption in the government, where the Koch brothers and their fellow billionaires pay government officials money to lower their taxes and increase ours. Everyone who is not rich (and I mean filthy freaking rich) should support this movement, because if your not one of the richest people in this country you will eventually lose everything you have the way this country is going right now. The more they eat at the middle class the closer you are to being chewed up with the rest of them. In other words, once all these people that are being foreclosed on and losing their homes and their jobs actually lose them, the system will just move on to the next person up the ladder and start taking everything from them. The 1% control 50% of the money in this country, and they want to control 100% of it.
Can someone show Govenor Haslam where the unemployment office is. He changed a law in the middle of the night and then demand State Troopers act as his own personal security force. A night court commissionaire knew more about the law that a Republican Business man who thought he was king. Im proud of Nashville and its Democratic Leadership that proves we can save millions and keep the Metro Police out of the embarrassing situation the Governor spent millions on an embarrassed a very professional Org.
It is all about leadership, who you follow and Choose to support.
Previously posted: "...the Occupy Nashville encampment is on Federal property...".
When was the War Memorial Plaza taken by the feds? I know the liberal federal judge is acting like she owns it, but I don't recall the state surrendering that particular piece of property.
I also think the plaza is state property, but otherwise endorse JEP's comments.
My suggestion to the OWS movement: Come January occupy the galleries of every state legislature in the country, with a nice fat contingent in DC. Wonder what the rules are for clearing the galleries and if they are constitutional.
" I also think the plaza is state property, but otherwise endorse JEP's comments."
Of course you do. And, why not take it upon yourself to lead the squatters to the state House and Senate galleries? I suspect you would get a rather firm response quite quickly which might also include overnight accommodations.
"Oh, and to the person who called occupiers, what was it, "Harmless Know Nothings"? They clearly know a lot more than you do if they can all see the corruption in the government, where the Koch brothers and their fellow billionaires pay government officials money to lower their taxes and increase ours"
Congratulations on succinctly demonstrating that YOU are one of the "know nothings".
Gilbert, you are wrong again. That's exactly what has been happening, and unless you are rich, too, which apparently you are not, I find it curious that you are a willing tool for the owning class, who actually produce nothing, do not in fact create jobs, and have been given carte blanche to purchase influence in the U.S. Congress and the General Assembly.
The occupy people have taken a stand against too much money in politics and against an economic, social and political system that favors the extremely rich at the expense of everyone else, the 99 percent. I think they are right about that. To insult them as people who can't hold a job might make you feel superior, since sneering at the unemployed is considered necessary and proper by the dittohead moron set, but is simply uniformed. Of course, Gilbert is one of the most uninformed people ever to blog on this or any toher forum.
A simple fact check will show that many, many occupiers, from Wall Street to Nashville to Los Angeles, are people who have held jobs, often very good jobs, but have been laid off as these extremely wealthy assholes have waged war on our middle class and working class citizens by merging, assimilating, and closing American businesses in order to move the jobs over seas. They export jobs, make a killing in the process, and then call the unemployed lazy, dirty hippes. Or get their ignorant puppets like Gilbert to do that.
Then they blame it on labor costs. Also patently false. (By the way Gilbert, why don't you find an unemployed teamster and tell him he lost his job because he so greedy for wanting a livable wage and decent benefits, and that he is probably just lazy too, and let me know what he says to you. You know, after you find some false teeth to replace the ones he knocks out of your dumbass head and you can talk again.)
So occupy has a reasonable and true message. Having said so, I don't know what is to be gained by continuing the present mode of protest. I support their ideas, vigorously agree in their right to be where they are, but think it is time to rethink the movement, give it some more definitiion, and do something more substantive with it.
"Gilbert, you are wrong again. That's exactly what has been happening"
Oh?
You mean that what exactly is happening is the "Kock brothers and their fellow billionaires pay government officials to lower their taxes and increase ours", as JE Phillips said?
Well then you'd better come up with some evidence of explicit cash transfers from the Koch's and those other billionaires to government officials and a direct quid pro quo from said officials that lowered their taxes.
And while you're at it, you can explain how all that can be since the bottom 50% of income earners pay practically no federal income taxes and the top 50% pay alomst all of them.
I hate to break it to you Perry, but a job is a voluntary arrangement between two willing parties.
It is not something that you have a "right" to or something that anyone else "owes" to you.
No one else is responsible for your welfare but you.
Companies belong to the owners and they exist to make money for the owners - just as they should. The business is their private property. And private property rights are, of course, unconditional and absolute.
No, you don't dictate what "I had better" do. Save your straw men and elaborately constructed false logic for the Gill program.
Koch Bros. are pumping billions into right wing social engineering, including elections, to perpetuate the hold of the super rich over the rest of us. Your perverted, immoral and detestible world view, that making money is all that matters and those who have it are the only ones with right on their side, is really indefinsible except by silly theorizing on the right wing edge of insanity.
An American company owner who exports jobs is a traitorous scumbag. That he has a "right" to do that doesn't negate that. That our Reagan and Bush era tax policies subsidize that is a political disaster that should be changed, and damn quickly.
People who work for a living do indeed have rights. The rights of a corporation owner are not "absolute" as much as your corporate puppetmasters might like you to think they are. Workers have a right to a livable wage, to nondiscrimination, to safe working conditions, and to the opportunity to choose collective bargaining to negotiate other workplace standards. "If you don't like it just leave" is not a moral or even legal right, especially when unemployemnt is at 9 or 10 percent--thanks largely to corporate decisions to treat foreign workers like pieces of shit rather than our own, because it is cheaper to do so.
What kind of world view do you have when you elevate the "absolute rights" of the wealthy and of corporations over the real human needs of real human beings? You are truly a sad, immoral, unfeeling, unethical and contemptible excuse, Gilbert.
"Koch Bros. are pumping billions into right wing social engineering, including elections, to perpetuate the hold of the super rich over the rest of us. "
Prove it - and do so with unequivocal and absolute definiitiveness or you've proven absolutely nothing.
"Workers have a right to a livable wage, to nondiscrimination, to safe working conditions, and to the opportunity to choose collective bargaining to negotiate other workplace standards"
Show me where it says so in the Constitution.
Here's what your "rights" are Perry: you have the right to be left alone by the government unless you have actively done something to harm someone else.
And that is all.
Perry Aubric: Your anger has made you insane. No one is entitled to anything. If you don't like the status quo start your own business. Too much effort? Too bad. The Koch brothers employ thousands and because of others like the Koch brothers America is the greatest economic force the world has ever seen. I've had two family members who worked for the Koch brothers and were happy to do so. You're angry about jobs going overseas? Well, as long as there are hungry Asians jobs are going to go overseas, chased there by outrageous union demands.
You're a pathetic little gnome, with indefensible and immoral attitudes toward society and your fellow man. And that is all.
Floyd Cramer on the piano there, by the way. Doing the slip-note thang.
What you have a right to is an unfair tax advantage. What you have a right to do is buy the "deciders" lock stock & barrel. What you have a right to do is write the laws that protect your unfair advantage. What you have a right to do is rig the game so you can't lose. What you have a right to is ANYTHING YOU LIKE - if you can afford it. How is it my problem if you can't afford it? Right gast? That sounds Christian. Fairness and justice for sale in America. That's the American way. That's why those people occupy.
What is a wonder and an amazement to me is how anyone can defend this system. Unless of course you benefit or hope to someday benefit from it. What a lovely, Christian aspiration. I love it when the money changers wag their bibles at me. Well I think - "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." Whip a dog long enough he's gonna bite you. That's what I think.
"You're a pathetic little gnome, with indefensible and immoral attitudes toward society and your fellow man. And that is all."
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!.
You are all bluff with nothing to back it up.
Well, I do not think Floyd Cramer would be very popular around here, Donna, I don't believe I'd told that. I have said before this board is filled with slackers and by God now they are resting on the Plaza, at least till the chill becomes too great.
The longer it lasts the better for the conservatives. People just don't like OWS's shannigans. Actually, I'd have more respect for them if they would get in a fight with the polices. Get a few heads rapped, but at least they have some balls. That beats running off whining to some liberal judge.
Smoochybozo: I can imagine you hang around with some people that so far have made the wrong decisions in life, don't have much, and life looks bleak to them. And I also imagine you don't pay much attention to the rest of America. So why don't go to a mall on Saturday morning, or park in front of a Best Buy, and look at the people going in and out of the stores. By day's end you will have seen thousands of people who are living the American dream. They're not rich, but they get by, they've got 2.3 kids and probably two cars in their driveways. They own all those houses you pass by when you're driving down a street. You need to look at them and hear their silence. They don't want your changes. They're content and they know that the rich supply the money and infrastructure that make America go. Rich, influential peolple are not your problem or the problem of the protesters; the people shopping at the malls and mowing their lawns are your problem. They are the ninety-nine percent and they're happy, they don't want your changes and they showed it in the last election when they cleaned house in Congress.
Oh, I'm saving that last one gast. I've copied and pasted it in my scrapbook. Yeah, the 99% are really thriving in your "trickle down." The crumbs from your table used to keep the majority silent, but you got too greedy. You squeezed a little too hard, stayed a little too long at the buffet. After all, when you've rigged the whole game, how can you lose right?
And I'M the one out of touch with REAL Americans? You think the 99% are sheep, happy and grateful for this feudal system? We'll be happy with cake right? Keep singing yourself to sleep gast. Your kind are going the way of the dodo.
The "occupy" groups never have or will represent 99% of the population.
No one elected them as the official spokesmen of the country.
Winter Solstice --- Its The Reason For The Season! (Christian trees are pagan)
Zeitgeist - The Movie - Religion 1/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDWYEbsnWMg
Try again with the link:
Zeitgeist - The Movie - Religion 1/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDWYEbsnWMg
Unless it's a special occasion (like police action) the "occupy" tents are
only about 1/2 occupied at night, with one exception, those over where
the Homeless are camping are all occupied! Most occupiers at night are
those tired of living with parents or sleeping on friends couches. See for
yourself's on any week night!
