Roy Exum
I guess the reason I don’t even have a pulse for the Occupy Movement is because I don’t understand it, not at all. I have yet to understand what those who camp out in grimy tents and stand around smoky campfires are trying to accomplish. Oh, I have read where it is about economic and social inequality and that’s okay but how do you score? I mean, what’s the end game?
Color me equally mystified over Hamilton County’s leaders who have just filed a suit in Chattanooga’s U.S. District Court against Occupy Chattanooga because, for the life of me, I can’t see that those encamped on the lawn in front of the Hamilton County Courthouse are anything other than common-day squatters.
My Wikipedia tells me that “squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use.”
Further, the web-based information source cited author Robert Neuwirth who “suggests that there are one billion squatters globally, that is, about one in every seven people on the planet." Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualized, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement."
Clearly the vast majority of us are baffled by Occupy Chattanooga because we cannot identify any demands, goals, or purpose for standing in the freezing January rain and twisting one’s hands over the greed of Wall Street, the fact new Apple CEO Tim Cook will be paid $378 million, and/or many other flaws in American society.
There appears to be a “freedom of speech” question but, since nobody has said anything, I can’t find any formal complaint. Hello? Without a formal complaint, how in thunder is the U.S. District Court going to render a decision? I’m perplexed; how do you give an answer if there isn’t a question?
Obviously the County Commission is trying to find some sort of leverage to get the squatters off the courthouse lawn and the odds are good most people in Chattanooga will agree the encampment is unsightly, unhygienic and – if the truth be told – now an ugly reflection on the city most of us aspire to enjoy.
Rather than go to U.S. District Court, where I suspect any attempt to get the court to give “advice” will be dismissed, I would send Sheriff Jim Hammond to respond in the same way I once witnessed a Manhattan patrol sergeant properly manage a protest over gay rights in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this one mid-December morning when Madison Avenue was packed with Christmas shoppers.
I was coming out of the church – which I had made a private tradition back in the days I’d find myself in New York every year – and spied the burly Irish cop walking up as the protesters made their way to lie down in the street. He listened to the leader demand the “right” to protest, cocked his hat back and replied, “Awright, you got your 15 minutes of fame …”
The sergeant dispatched four officers with whistles to stop traffic, which quickly snarled the streets, and then stood looking bored as … well, the protesters protested in the middle of Madison Avenue. He checked his watch a time or two and then, as promised, tapped the lead guy on the shin with his billy club and said loud enough for all to hear, “Time’s up … you ain’t famous anymore. Move on.”
The protester just shut his eyes, not moving. The Irish cop tapped the protester’s shin considerably harder and leaned down to say, “C’mon Bub ... you people is leaving … you don’t want me to be famous in the next 15 minutes, now do you?” and, sure enough, the protest was immediately disbanded but the protesters, mind you, had protested.
I believe Occupy Chattanooga has sufficiently “occupied.” Time’s up and everybody has been nice so far but the squatting ought to end now. Sure, the Occupy crowd can be a further blight, with court-appointed civil rights lawyers and unfair expense to taxpayers and the U.S. District Court getting as tangled up as Madison Avenue but let’s end the squatting once and for all and be done with it.
And if any protester wants to “occupy” jail, at least make ‘em pay rent. Squatters, we have just found, Chattanooga does not need.
royexum@aol.com