nothing happened

So for the first time I swung by the OccupySTL. Actually hadn't been down to Kiener Plaza in quite some time, perhaps not in over a year.

The city released an ultimatum to the group that has three fascinating legal angles for me, perhaps most fascinating now that nothing happened. First, the notion that the city would start strict enforcement of ordinances is a plain as day admission of how our two tiered justice system works - selective prosecution is so engrained in the system that it is not even hidden. The city document leads to the obvious conclusion that most city laws are enforced lackadaisically. They exist not so much as rule of law as tool of power. Second, saying effective immediately at 3:00pm sets up a binary choice of confrontation; there is no way for cooler heads to prevail without completely blinking. Third, what does the Constitution's protection of the right to assemble actually mean? Every big city government in the country takes money and other support from laws passed by Congress, and Congress quite explicitly is forbidden from passing any laws respecting the right of the people to peaceably assemble.

At this stage there is a lot of hunger for answers (answers that conveniently fit in an existing, authorized, enclosed box). One of the most subversive acts of the occupy movement, I think, is its focus first on trying to create space for the questions. The right questions then reframe the whole debate.

Which is of course what's so dangerous about letting the rabble gather in public. It destroyed the British empire.