The hip thing to do in Asheville is to break a stupid law until the police arrest you, or do something totally obnoxious that should be illegal to try to get the police to wrongly arrest you. It’s like the story told of hippies passing a joint around a theatre, getting the police to do cartwheels, back-flips, and other stupid dog tricks in attempting to carry out their duty. It’s so much better than letting them patrol amidst reports of car break-ins and business robberies.
In the latest incident, Occupy Asheville told WLOS TV they were trying to get more people arrested. The police department had also been warned about the planned flash mob oxymoron. The reason, supposedly, is because the collective thought process of Occupy Asheville has deemed the curfew un-Constitutional.
The city’s 10 p.m. curfews were instituted in a darker age, when muggers and rapists were afraid to do their thing in broad daylight, and perpetrators of lewd and licentious acts were somewhat ashamed to do it in the middle of the road in the middle of the day. Furthermore, there is a growing need for people to exercise their freedom of speech at 2:05 in the morning.
The plan, as announced by spokespeople from Occupy Asheville, was to hold a Veterans’ Day celebration at the Vance Monument, where Veterans for Peace usually protest. But when the clock struck 10, all non-veterans would be asked to leave. That way, the police would be arresting veterans for honoring the names of soldiers killed in the line of duty on Veterans’ Day.
A little before 10, people set up with signs. They sang songs. There was a vigil, but nobody bothered to honor or request a variance in the procedure for procuring a demonstration permit. The enlightened are above the law. Reportedly, somebody started a fire in the public park. It was probably a green fire, so there is no reason to be alarmed. We’ll just assume it was for staying warm rather than any kind of protest. I mean, most people do start fires on public sidewalks anymore, don’t they?
The police made one or two trips to issue warnings, but cleverly waited until a little after midnight, so the protesting vets, whose military history had not been confirmed by the time of the report in the Mountain Xpress, couldn’t make the police look as bad as they had wanted to.
Much of the action was captured on a little video by Occupy Asheville. The vid starts with a request for donations.