Denver City Council held a hearing yesterday on a proposed new ordinance that would ban outdoor "camping" in unauthorized areas of Denver. Although no one associated with the city will actually say on the record what the ordinance is really about, everyone understands it's primarily aimed at trying to pre-empt an Occupy Denver resurgence.
Several sources within the city government have told the Peak their goal is to have this ordinance working its way onto the books before the weather prompts Occupiers to return, en masse, to Civic Center Park.
The national Occupy movement is making noise about their resurgence hope. Reports The New York Times:
The movement’s staying power will depend on the success of several events planned for the coming weeks. Despite recent actions that have fizzled, including an Occupy Corporations day in February, organizers are planning a strike and demonstrations on May 1, International Labor Day. But the response has been mixed, and activists now say that Americans could show sympathy for the cause in other ways, like not shopping that day.
Chris Longenecker, 24, a member of the group who is helping to organize the strike and protests in May, said the lull in attention over the past few months was due to the group’s focus on building up capacity for larger events.
“We are looking to late spring and summer,” he said. “We are reconnecting with our passive supporters who saw us lay more dormant in the winter. We have spent the vast majority of the winter laying roots across community organizations and labor and immigration.”
Denver faced several months of Occupy torment in the late summer and fall last year and even the lefties in the Denver city government realize the costs and negative press associated with an even more extended occupation this year would overwhelm the city. The sponsor of the ordinance, Councilman Albus Brooks, tried to couch the measure as one of compassion in his opening remarks today:
"It's inhumane to have people sleeping outside," said Brooks in his opening remarks before the council's Land Use, Transportation & Infrastructure committee.
Earlier this month, one of the people in the Occupy camp admitted to officials they were infected with scabies (think mange for people).
Those at the city know the highly contagious parasite could have infected a much larger population if it had started when the waves of Occupiers were sharing blankets and tents during the warmer months. If they are allowed to return for an even more extended period of time this year, the campers staying there for days without proper sanitation could create a critical health crisis.
City officials can couch this proposed ordinance however they think will be most politically expedient, but at the end of the day, Denver has been dealing with a homeless population for decades and this ordinance is now proposed because the Occupiers are here.
What part of “we don’t need the laws, we don’t want the laws” don’t you understand? We have already beaten you using your rules. We all know your rules, probably better than you do. And just as an aside, where you screwed up in the OWS movement is you forgot to include the music, but we didn’t. You fell in love with your own voices and you forgot how to motivate people and you forgot to clearly define your issue, but we didn’t.
And you forgot that back in 1967 when you spat on us at the airports you made a “liberal impression” that we never forgot. We listened, we watched and we learned and we got together, all over this nation. We improvised, we adapted and we will overcome. We promised ourselves never again. And that’s why you got your butt handed to you. We’ve had a lifetime to perfect what you started. Now we can’t stop you from doing what you do but I guarantee we will break you of the habit. Semper Fidelis
Didn’t go there, didn’t participate in any way, because I was pretty sure it would end up the way it did.
And no one ever spat on a Viet Nam veteran. That was made up by Sylvester Stallone for a movie. Even if it did, I wasn’t alive yet in 1967. Any spitting I did during the war was spitting up.
You sound like someone who ought to be on meds, and I don’t say that as an internet insult; I say that as an actual concern for a fellow human being.
Laws against peaceable assembly aren’t Constitutional, and if “crustyoldgoat’s” fevered hallucinations were true, there are already laws on the books against the activities he described.
All this will do is cost the city millions to defend against the inevitable lawsuits.
I’m not the one with the ‘fevered hallucinations’, that would be you.
The first paragraph of the story.
“Denver City Council held a hearing yesterday on a proposed new ordinance that would ban outdoor “camping” in unauthorized areas of Denver. Although no one associated with the city will actually say on the record what the ordinance is really about, everyone understands it’s primarily aimed at trying to pre-empt an Occupy Denver resurgence.”
I’m not the one pushing for stupid laws, but you seem intent on deflecting the blame from those who do intend to create UnConstitutional laws to me.
Another alinsky rule for radicals quote for your viewing pleasure.
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Anymore questions ‘aristootle’?
You referred to the criminal activities that have been well documented and broadcast on national, as well as world wide, television, radio, newspuppets and the internet as my ‘fevered hallucinations’
Either you do not watch enough TV, radio, or the internet does not extend all the way down into your mommies cellar.
WorldNutDaily isn’t any of those things. But you go right ahead and swallow it. No skin off my nose if you do.
All of the above were on all the media outlets I mentioned.
If your favorite source of information, apparently ‘worldnutdaily’ didn’t keep you informed then perhaps you should broaden your horizons and find better sources.
I might suggest http://worldnetdaily.com, because that site carried a lot of the rabbles antics, but that site requires a certain amount of intelligence to understand the concept of civil discourse and civil decorum while in public and in view of children.
But, as a liberal, you feel it is your duty to be as offensive as possible because your ego has issues with normal People not needing to be spoonfed everything.
Too bad that you are incapable of fending for yourself and unable to provide for your own family.
You just proved me right. Thanks, goat!
“It’s inhumane to have people sleeping outside,” said Brooks in his opening remarks before the council’s Land Use, Transportation & Infrastructure committee.”
Well, they were doing so of their own free will. And when they discovered that nobody cared they began acting in anti-societal manners including public nudity, public drunkeness and drug use.
Rapes were committed, people died, others assaulted, police cars were defecated on, obscenities were shouted and screamed at passerbys,all for naught.
The public tired of the ignorance and stupidity constantly on display.
so now the government wants to make it a 9-5 job?
dumb move. But they are politicians – can we expect much more?
Certainly there is little intellectual activity going on there.
Why do Republicans always insist on being reactionary? Why put bean-counters to develop strategies against liberal street actions? Why interrupt an opposition who is in the process of self destructing? Occupy Wall Street (OWS) made three major mistakes at their genesis.
First, protests of continuous occupation always fail because ordinary people, even those who enjoy the empowerment of street protests, get tired of sleeping on the ground and listening to other people snoring all night. Second, continuous occupation eliminates the participation of the employed, those with families and those who are not completely radicalized. Third, the purpose of protest is to attract media attention. If you stand on a street corner with a sign, the only people that read your message are those who pass by. With media attention hundreds, of thousands read your message on the nightly news. Continuous occupation breeds media fatigue syndrome. That’s OWS evolved into violence which further alienates John Q Public.
Why would Republicans want to interfere with that doomed strategy? Why redefine the issue as Republicans against the homeless and hand the liberals the moral high ground, and return as a gift the liberal cover of humanitarian aid?
Many of us who organized the TEA Parties understand street action strategies and tactics, how to implement them and how to counter them. And we learned most everything we know from the 1960s radical liberals. But the benefit of that experience and street smart is wasted by the Republican Party ruling elite as a result of their refusal to accept conservatives into their decision making paradigm.
Fact; at the last OWS sponsored protest at the mall in Grand Junction, there were a total of three protestors. Was that an accident or was it the result of a conservative, street smart, TEA Party strategy having been in play from the genesis of the local occupy movement? We did not build a forum for the opposition through counter-protest because that would have been counterproductive.
We exposed to the public their self-avowed anarchist leadership and we identified and notified their targets days before they showed up. We exposed their illegal activities (vandalism etc) and we created in the public eye the perception of a socialist/communist origin and agenda. This stuff is not rocket science but its application is dependent on street experience, knowledge of the opposition, leadership strategies and tactics and the ability to think outside the box. And the one thing it does not require is a reactionary attitude.
Together we can work smarter. Divided, we are forced to work harder. You decide what’s best for Republicans. We have already decided what’s best for Conservatives. You break it, you own it. The Republican Party has our phone number. The only question that remains is, will they be smart enough to use it.