Last night the NYPD evicted the Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zucotti Park in an ostensible effort to "clean" the park. While that is an outrage, in and of itself, the way in which the raid was conducted was even worse. A midnight raid, carried out by heavily armed police accompanied by bulldozers and helicopters, was launched in secrecy, with the press deliberately excluded from the area and local residents locked in their own homes. Dozens of people were beaten, pepper-sprayed and arrested. The library of more than 5,000 books that the protestors had carefully assembled was thrown into a trash heap along with all of their tents and other possessions. Any pretense that we still live in a free society was thus swept away in the name of public sanitation. Whatever you think of the protestors themselves, or their goals, or even their methods, if you believe in the freedom we so proudly proclaim in this country, you should be outraged too. Freedom is frequently inconvenient, often uncomfortable and yes, occasionally unsanitary. Such is the price that must sometimes be paid to protect the rights we claim to cherish.
Think carefully about what happened here, and imagine that it took place in some foreign capitol, especially one which we regard with disdain. Imagine Moscow, or Beijing, Damascus or even Cairo. Imagine the indignation of our politicians as a peaceful protest against political corruption and economic injustice was ruthlessly suppressed there. Imagine the self-satisfied mutterings of ordinary Americans that such a thing could never happen here because, of course, we live in a free country. Well, it has happened here. Are we still free?
Are we still free when the government can decide which news stories the press can and cannot cover? Are we still free when the police transform themselves into paramilitary forces? When violence is used to suppress dissent? When corporations have a constitutional right to use their endless supplies of cash to influence elections, but ordinary citizens with no money are unable to gather peacefully to make their grievances known? When protests require a permit from the very people you are protesting against? When protestors themselves are shunted off and walled away in what can only be described as ghettos of free speech, where they won't offend or disrupt the system they seek to change?
The answer seems obvious, and the feebleness of Mayor Bloomberg's excuse belies his true motivation. New York City is filled with crumbling tenements, filthy slums and parks too dangerous to visit even in the daytime. Perhaps if he and the rest of the government had devoted more effort to addressing the grievances of the people who live in those places there would never have been a protest in Zucotti Park to begin with, and nothing there to "clean."
Well, Zucotti Park is clean now. Public spaces usually are in authoritarian countries where no dissent is allowed. In free societies, the parks tend to be a bit messier.
11:49 AM PT: In keeping with Mayor Bloomberg's disregard of the law and the rights of free speech, he is apparently choosing to disregard a court order allowing the protesters to return to the park. http://www.cnn.com/...
Wed Nov 16, 2011 at 6:24 AM PT: Yesterday afternoon, Bloomberg found another judge who would take his side, and will no doubt trumpet the importance of this order, in contrast to the earlier ruling he ignored. Here is a copy, if you want to read it. One of the critical facts from a legal perspective is that restrictions on camping at Zucotti Park didn't exist until after the protests began. This judge noted that fact, but still ruled against the protestors. http://www.guardian.co.uk/...