Nashville

I didn’t know there was an Occupy Nashville, but there is. Protesters have been camped out in the Legislative Plaza since October 7. There are dozens there around the clock. And if you’re homeless in Nashville it is totally the place to be now. :-\

Amazingly, the state is trying to ban this protest. Effective today, there is a new curfew. Nobody is allowed in the plaza at night. If you want to protest near the state capitol during the day, you must get a permit that costs $65 per day and get liability insurance coverage for $1 million, in case you break something.

On the plus side, the Tennessean is doing its job.

The latest: State imposes new curfew to evict Occupy Nashville protesters

Earlier: Occupy Nashville protesters may be ousted from Legislative Plaza

To me it doesn’t seem like “there’s a bunch of people out there who disagree with my politics, and homeless people” is a good rationale for making emergency rules changes and starting curfews. I sure hope this kind of action to ban a specific protest is unconstitutional.

Right now I have the feeling you get when you’re being trolled. You know the right response is to keep your head and be an adult. You know yelling will not help. Nothing will help, except to walk away.

Only the people trolling me are my government. …Actually I feel like that a lot lately.

Oakland

what it looked like to be there (warning: contains loud swearing and people acting like they’re in a movie)

NYT blog

Well, firing any sort of weapon at peaceful protestors is just wrong. People who would do that or order it should not be cops, because cops should have a level head and a sense of what amount of force is appropriate.

The Oakland PD says some individual protestors were throwing bottles and bricks. That seems likely enough—I don’t mean to give the impression I think all the protestors were model citizens on their best behavior—but it’s also no excuse. Individual drunks and troublemakers can be arrested individually. It can be done without weapons drawn. This may not be conventional wisdom among cops anymore, but to me it’s just common sense.

Ordinary cops, behaving the way cops behave across the country, turned this nonevent into a bizarre police-only riot. Two cops were hurt. Several citizens were hurt. They’re lucky it wasn’t much worse. What’s next for Oakland is up to Oakland. But the conventional wisdom has got to change.