I sat here this morning thinking about how to put into words what I feel and think about the Occupy Delaware situation and the Markell Administration’s and the City of Wilmington’s response so far to it. And then I read Kavips and find that he has basically said everything that needs to be said.
I have a lot of sympathy for Brian Selander, Governor Markell’s chief strategy officer, primarily because he and I are a lot alike. Practical. Pragmatic. Progressive but not purist. And I do not envy his responsibilities and obligations and the balancing act that is taking place. But I have also sympathy for the protestors. And I am afraid that sympathy wins out. As Kavips says:
This is not some ragtag group of protesters. These are former professionals, people currently employed or not, who are scared to death, that their country is going down the wrong path, fast. As much as you [Brian] and Jack have been scrambling to bring jobs here to Delaware, YOU KNOW THEY ARE RIGHT!!
We ARE going down the wrong path, … and HAVE BEEN, ever since the 2000 elections! And the nuts who got elected from conservative districts in 2010, haven’t helped!
Kavips goes on to make what I think is an ill placed analogy of this situation to the early Revolutionary War days, with Brian Selander taking on the role of the Governor General of Massachusetts trying to balance the interests of the crown and the colonists. If that analogy were apt, that makes Governor Markell …. King George III? Nah. Not really. Maybe the corporate overlords are the mad King George? Perhaps then, yes. But I digress.
It is Kavips’ opinion that Brian’s statement to the press last night struck the wrong tone.
“The state made a very reasonable offer with the use of state managed properties at Brandywine and Fletcher Brown park,” Selander said. “It was an offer that respected constitutional rights to be heard and assemble. They’ve chosen a different path.”
That paints the protestors as unreasonable. I’m sorry, but that dog doesn’t hunt. I think the Occupy movement has been very reasonable in their statements. I thought a conflict over Fletcher Brown Park would be unwise because the PR battle would have been protestors v. children, a battle certain to be lost. But Peter Spencer Plaza next to the City/County Building? Hey, that’s fair. That’s reasonable. It may be inconvenient and not pleasing to look at, but neither is Occupy Philly, which I have to walk around every morning. But I grin and bare it because I support the larger message, the larger purpose.
Bringing guns to rallies where bigotry and calls to violence are espoused, that’s unreasonable. Wanting your tents and your signs seen and not hidden away north of I-95, I think that is reasonable. I imagine Brian and the Governor are concerned about precedent. That allowing Occupy Delaware to camp with out a permit sets the stage down the line for more egregious groups, like perhaps the KKK, to do the same. And that is why cities and states set up the permit and fee process to discourage such groups, or at least to control them.
I admit that is a concern, but not an overriding one. The thing about hateful groups is that they tend to be hateful, and violent groups tend to be violent, and thus the police usually clear these protests for those reasons. Occupy Delaware is not hateful. Occupy Delaware is not violent. So I think that concern should vanish.
Kavips offers up what the Governor and his office should say:
“These people are citizens of this nation. They are protected by the U.S Constitution like everyone else. We are a fee-based society. Sometimes, like the poll tax, those fees get in the way of pure democracy. Heaven forbid, that democracy could only exist, for those who could afford to pay a fee. In fact, the Stamp Act by the British, that event that triggered the American Revolution, was exactly that. A fee for a permit. Currently, the Occupy Movement is representing the revolutionary spirit that created this country. Likewise, they represent the moral equivalent of those who felt slavery, despite it’s being sanctioned by the Federal government, was intensely immoral, and an abomination. They too, like those who said it was wrong to have a second class citizenry, based solely upon the color of ones skin, even though that too, was approved and sanctioned by State governments around this nation.
For this reason, we are going to issue permits for this group. They have the same right as every citizen in America, to make their grievances known. When the wealthy lost an election, they had money to advertise, set up rallies, buy media spokespersons, pour unheard amounts of money into tiny local campaigns. But when the poor want to do the same, we say, sorry, you can’t because you don’t have cash…. and your checks come back stamped: insufficient funds.
One must wonder, if our current mayor, yes, that one who got his start during the Civil Rights movement right here in Wilmington, would be here today, if he, failed, yes, failed to lead a protest on some steps near here, because to do so, he would have first, had to pay a fee?
A fee/permit system is the surest method to silence the poor. Yet those who can’t afford it, were expressly given the same rights under the Constitution of the United States of America. They were given them, simply because, we were going to be a nation designed like no other, where each person, no matter his income, had the equal right to life, to liberty, and to their individual pursuit of happiness..
Like Philadelphia to the north of us, Baltimore to the south of us, New York to the northeast of us, we too will allow these citizens of the Occupy movement, to make their grievances known, in their own way. Their symbol of communication, is with tents. We ask, and have been given assurances, that they will respect every other citizen’s rights and property, in their pursuit of expressing their message.
We wish them luck with their endeavor.
Occupy Philly, as well as hundreds of other Occupy movements around the country have been going on without incident or controversy. The only places where there have been clashes are where has been disagreement between public officials and the protestors over the occupation, which led to the police trying to evict or chase out the protestors (i.e. Denver, New York City and Oakland), which led to public attention and increased media coverage.
The only place where the protestors could have been described as violent was in Oakland, and that is because some anarchists came in after a march and started vandalizing. If the same happens here in Wilmington, feel free to chase them down, evict them, and arrest them.
Otherwise it is a peaceful if inconvenient protest.
Don’t clash with it. Respect it. And if you disagree with it, then ignore it.