October 15, 2011
There was NO police presence that I could detect during three separate visits to the Bo Diddley Plaza. Perhaps the embarrassment of having arrested the son of the local hero made the police reconsider their approach.
Mummy-like sleepers lay on the wood-chips in the early morning while the regular homeless population was taking breakfast at the picnic tables under the oaks. It seems the presence of the homeless at all hours of the day and night has been an irritant for a down-town that's still looking to be revitalized without any visible evidence of people. While residential units have mushroomed, there still aren't sidewalks for people to walk. From secured habitat to motorized cage to designated work-place is still the preferred mode of operation for the citizens of Gainesville. Having people perambulate is still anxious-making.
I'm told that St. Francis House has been restricted to serving no more than 120 persons per day. How such restrictions can be squared with the Constitution is beyond me. St. Francis House isn't even a commercial enterprise. Of course, it's only the Congress that's precluded from making laws affecting establishments of religion. Since it is up to the people to enforce the laws, municipal restrictions and prior restraints are sure to bubble up as the occupations continue and people become better informed about what their neighbors need.
It seems pretty clear that the 1%ers are isolates. Some are anti-social, but most, I suspect, simply aren't able to connect and, in the alternative effort to dominate, they find it convenient to isolate their targets. Not to make them more like themselves, but because individuals are easier to manipulate than groups. Segmentation and segregation aren't goals in themselves; rather they serve the objective of domination. Funny that people who can't control themselves seek to dominate others. Or is it simply a matter of imitating the behavior of people who find it necessary to direct them to get them to do anything useful at all?