COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Bloomberg: OWS Protests 'Just An Opportunity For A Bunch Of Unions To Complain'

IMAGE Bloomberg at a press conference yesterday discussing the OWS protests (nycmayorsoffice's flickr).

Sure there were thousands on the streets, hundreds of arrests and a bit of blood in yesterday's Occupy protests but if you ask our billionaire mayor from Boston about them he'll say it wasn't what it looked like. On his weekly radio appearance on WOR today the mayor said the protest was really 'just an opportunity for a bunch of unions to complain or to protest, or whatever they want to do.' Is Mayor Bloomberg just trying to bring more people to the cause?

In case you didn't get the point though he went on, arguing that 'a vast percentage' of the thousands of marchers were union members with 'organized signs and leadership' and that 'it really wasn't the protesters that have been in Zuccotti Park or that you see around the country.' Of course it wasn't, it was them and a whole lot of fed up New Yorkers. Yes, some of them were union members, but does that make them somehow worth less? When he wasn't trying to denigrate yesterday's actions, he also tried to explain away the eviction and cleaning at Zuccotti Park late Monday night with a slightly new twist. He had to do it this week, you see, because, 'If you tried to do it earlier, it's not clear to me that the courts would have permitted it. In Boston, I think they were stopped from taking the tents down by the courts. The courts want to be convinced that you are protecting people's First Amendment rights and that the argument that there is a safety hazard is a legitimate one. In this case we convinced the judge of both.'

Sigh, Keith Olbermann's recent 'special comment' on Hizzoner just keeps ringing truer and truer:

http://youtu.be/yoG9PmdGaT8

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By Garth Johnston in News on November 18, 2011 11:45 AM 56