After unfounded arrests, 'Occupy' movement still sends strong message
When members of one party in a staring contest have to endure cold, rain and time off from their regular lives, you’d normally expect that party to lose — especially if members of the other party need only sit in their comfortable offices and watch.
The “Occupy Wall Street” movement so far has been an endurance test: the protesters’ resolve versus the authorities’ patience. Last week, the establishment blinked, while the ragtag bands of protesters occupying the ground beneath stood firm.
Here in Columbia, a month and a day after the occupation of the Statehouse began, Gov. Nikki Haley decreed that protesters would no longer be allowed to spend nights outside the Statehouse and ordered the protest cease after the arbitrary hour of 6 p.m. Nineteen protesters nobly volunteered to be arrested that evening in a nonviolent show of defiance.
The legality of Haley’s decree was so questionable, the city of Columbia refused to assist with the removal of occupiers. The governor’s justifications — concerns about sanitation and damage to the lawn — are unconvincing. Protesters deny her claims, pointing out that they have consistently rotated their sleeping area to allow the grass to recover.
My own experience of the occupation leads me to believe that the grounds have been treated respectfully. Certainly Haley’s assertions were exaggerated, if not invented out of whole cloth. Haley’s excuses only answer the question “why?” and not “why now?”
If the state were truly convinced that sleeping bags would damage the lawn, why were they allowed in the first place? As for the $17,000 the state had to pay to police the occupation, it’s not the protesters’ fault that the state overreacted to their presence.
The truth is, occupations were shut down because the authorities ran out of patience. They were tolerated because it was assumed they wouldn’t last, that they couldn’t endure the rain, that the coming of winter would disperse them and that the American people would get bored and turn their eyes on something else.
This may be the first time anyone ever lost a bet by underestimating the American attention span. Instead, the occupation persevered and succeeded in changing the national conversation. Uses of the phrase “income inequality” in the media have increased fivefold since the movement began, while mentions of the establishment’s boogeyman du jour — the deficit — have fallen.
The permanent occupation is important. It says, clearly, “These problems aren’t going away, so we’re not going away.”
If the permanent occupation of physical space can’t be maintained, we can still occupy the conversation. Fixing the system will be an arduous process. It won’t happen if we get tired or distracted. It won’t happen if we blink. But we haven’t blinked. The first month of “Occupy Columbia” was a staring contest, and we won.