All over the country, but most notably in New York City, Portland and Oakland, the Powers That Be have decided to roust the occupy protestors from their encampments. Perusing the news over the last few days, the story has been largely the same all over, in Albany, in Salt Lake City, in Denver—evictions, arrests, police crackdowns.
[Denver, image left]
Nationwide efforts to roust the protesters appear to be concerted and thus planned in advance. There is no way to prove that, but in this case I fear appearances are not deceiving. Still, not all of the protests have been rousted. Occupy Boston is still going strong.
It was easy for Those In Charge to come up with rationales for dispersing the protesters. Some camps had become havens for the homeless. Naturally there was some drug use. Trouble-makers infiltrated the protests, and here and there crimes were committed. None of this is out of ordinary, but it's certainly enough if you want to crackdown on protests you never wanted and were eager to get rid of.
And let's not leave out those pesky Anarchists
Overnight, the clearing of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan made the headlines because that's where it all began. Here's the sanitized New York Times version.
Hundreds of police officers early Tuesday cleared the park in Lower Manhattan that had been the nexus of the Occupy Wall Street movement, arresting dozens of people there after warning that the nearly two-month-old camp would be “cleared and restored” but that demonstrators who did not leave would face arrest.
The protesters, about 200 of whom have been staying in the park overnight, initially resisted with chants of “Whose park? Our park!”
... Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who scheduled a news conference for Tuesday morning, had issued a statement explaining the reasoning behind the sweep. “The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” the mayor said in the statement. “Every since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with” because the protesters had taken over the park, “making it unavailable to anyone else.”
“I have become increasingly concerned – as had the park’s owner, Brookfield Properties – that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protestors and to the surrounding community,” Mr. Bloomberg said. He added that on Monday, Brookfield asked the city to assist in enforcing “the no sleeping and camping rules”...
The police move came as organizers put out word on their Web site that they planned to “shut down Wall Street” with a demonstration on Thursday to commemorate the completion of two months of the beginning of the encampment, which has spurred similar demonstrations across the country.
The move also came hours after a small demonstration at City Hall on Monday by opponents of the protest, including local residents and merchants, some of whom urged the mayor to clear out the park.
And what does the billionaire mayor of New York City think of all this?
Mr. Bloomberg had struggled with how to respond. He repeatedly made clear that he does not support the demonstrators’ arguments or their tactics, but he has also defended their right to protest and in recent days and weeks has sounded increasingly exasperated, especially in the wake of growing complaints from neighbors about how the protest has disrupted the neighborhood and hurt local businesses.
It was just a matter of time before last night's police action became a reality. If Bloomberg had felt sympathetic toward the protesters—an impossibility, I grant you—they would not have been rousted.
So what are we to say about this? It was fun while it lasted? That the system does what the system is set up to do? That might makes right?
We can say all of this and more. But the most important point we can make today is that the Occupy protests have been a shining success. For a long time on DOTE, I had been writing about income and wealth inequality, and all sorts of other issues related to socioeconomic injustice. I will continue to do so, but I saw literally hundreds of stories about these subjects after the protests, whereas before the protests such stories were scarce.
Most of the 1% versus 99% stories I saw were misguided. Many of them were blatant, disgusting attempts to discredit the protests, but some were not. Consciousness was raised, even if ever so slightly. And of course those benefiting from the status quo are simply hopeless. See my post We Are The 98%.
So here's my message to the protesters: whatever happens from here on out, hold your heads high. You've done a good job in the face of overwhelming pressure. You spoke truth to power. Be proud of what you've done.
Bonus Videos
It was also heartening to see SOMEONE finally stand up whose protest wasn't being funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers. Most of the OWS protesters may not precisely understand what the problem is, but at least they recognize there's a problem, unlike the vast majority of consumer zombies out there.
Posted by: Bill Hicks | 11/15/2011 at 11:53 AM