November 15, 2011 05:48 PM UTC

#OccupyWallStreet Gets "The Mike Hancock Special"

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The New York Times reports overnight:

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…

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.

“But make no mistake,” the mayor said, “the final decision to act was mine.”

Last night’s police action to clear Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan of Occupy Wall Street protesters comes after demonstrators reportedly threatened an escalation of their protest activity, seeking this week to directly impede the operations of stock exchanges and financial services corporations in the area. It comes days, and in some cases weeks after similar tent encampments were cleared from other cities including Denver.

In Denver this weekend, another large Occupy Denver protest march occurred, after which a smaller group again clashed with police over tents and other personal belongings in Civic Center Park. Further attempts to block traffic on Broadway and erect tents in the park in defiance of police orders resulted in several dozen more arrests on Saturday and Sunday.

As we’ve said, the longer the Occupy Wall Street protests are dominated by clashes with police over camping in city parks, as opposed to their message against economic inequality, the harder it will be to retain their level of public support. In Denver, many protesters seem to have been lured completely off message, where violent clashes against police and defense of squalid tent encampments have almost entirely subsumed the movement’s stated goals. Occupy Denver appears to have split into two factions: those advocating for continued police confrontation and attempts to camp in the park, and others who realize that this fixation is seriously harming them.

We have said from the beginning that the focus of these protests must change from unsustainable “occupation” in tents–a symbol of confrontation that can nonetheless be used to turn the housed “99%” against them–to organization and outreach beyond the limited group of people willing (or forced by homelessness) to camp out in winter. It was always the case that these protests would need to adapt to winter weather when camping is neither safe nor practical. And we’re sorry: you can’t have hundreds of people camping out for months in the middle of the city without a plan for sanitation. The public health consequences are real.

Bottom line: it’s a test of this movement’s staying power, folks. The police in New York, as in Denver, are carrying out lawful orders. Occupy Denver’s Saturday marches continue to draw large crowds, the vast majority of which peacefully disperse well before enforcement action begins. The ability to adapt through the winter, putting a stop to continuous marginalization by police enforcing the law, is the only way these protests will survive until the spring.