Social Activism
Occupy Wall Street

Ezra Klein on the removal of protesters from Zuccotti Park

COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Ezra Klein - 9:24 AM - Shared from +1 - Public

At about 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, hundreds of New York City police officers raided Zuccotti Park. Police tore down tents and, according to witnesses, used tear gas, pepper spray, and at about 3 a.m., a sound cannon. Some of the protesters left immediately, quietly. Some of them joined together in the middle of the park, chanting, “Whose park? Our park!”

Police ultimately made 70 arrests and cleared the area. Their park.

In a statement released a few hours ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg* explained the raid. “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. We have been in constant contact with Brookfield and yesterday they requested that the City assist it in enforcing the no sleeping and camping rules in the park. But make no mistake – the final decision to act was mine.”

Members of Occupy Wall Street are furious. Protests are being planned at various sites throughout the day. But the truth is, Bloomberg might have just done Occupy Wall Street a favor.

Next week, temperatures are projected to dip down to the high 30s. Next month, they’re projected to dip into the mid-20s. The month after that, as anyone who has experienced a New York winter know, they’re going to fall even lower.

The occupation of Zuccotti Park was always going to have a tough time enduring for much longer. As the initial excitement wore off and the cold crept in, only the diehards -- and those with no place else to go -- were likely to remain. The numbers in Zuccotti Park would thin, and so too would the media coverage. And in the event someone died of hypothermia, or there was some other disaster, that coverage could turn. What once looked like a powerful protest could come to be seen as a dangerous frivolity.

In aggressively clearing them from the park, Bloomberg spared them that fate. Zuccotti Park wasn’t emptied by weather, or the insufficient commitment of protesters. It was cleared by pepper spray and tear gas. It was cleared by police and authority. It was cleared by a billionaire mayor from Wall Street and a request by one of America’s largest commercial real estate developers. It was cleared, in other words, in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next

+Jim Breeling - I have gut-sympathy with the Occupiers, but my brain hasn't yet been energized. Maybe a problem is that I am old enough to recall when similar sentiments were organized around Marxism--which is now non-existent as an organizing force. I know what th Occupiers are against; I'm waiting to hear what they are for. But, then maybe I'm too much like the person described by Eric Hoffer--just waiting for someone to tell me what to be for. Peter Burgess response +Jim Breeling If you know what the Occupy Movement is against, and you have a brain ... and experience ... surely you can connect the dots and understand what they are for. In theory we have had 'leadership' for the past 40 years and a system that is the best in the world for creating wealth ... and I would argue that the leadership and the system have failed abysmally. I am an advocate for a value market economy to supplement the capitalist market economy. A value market economy would get resources to support economic activity that satisfies needs and creates valueadd that maintains and improves quality of life.