OWS
Zuccotti Park has been cleared, an eviction started at 1am when police in riot gear and NYPD counter-terrorism units came in to dismantle tents and sweep up the belongings of people who did not leave.
I have very mixed feelings about this. Zuccotti Park is a private park. It’s not owned by the city. It belongs to Brookfield Properties. OWS protesters have been occupying someone else’s property for two months, turning land that belongs to someone else into their temporary home. Brookfield Properties has every right to want the protesters off their property. Every right. They are, for all intents and purposes, squatters. While people have a constitutional right to assemble, I don’t think that right is guaranteed when you are doing it on someone else’s lawn for two months, making their property unusable for its intended use.
However.
Coming in at 1am in complete darkness, barring the press from the area and dumping people’s belongings (including the OWS kitchen and library) into what is now a worthless pile of broken junk is not the best way to handle the situation. Especially when the protesters were told to disperse and they could come back in and get their belongings later.
It’s the barring of the press that bothers me. The mayor wants this done without witnesses, without evidence of what transpires. It is possible to evict people peacefully. It is possible to evict people without treating their belongings as garbage. But apparently that’s not what was intended to happen because why else would the press be kept away?
Like I said, mixed feelings. While I can understand the property owners’ desire to have OWS moved out, I don’t understand the need for an almost covert operation to get it done, nor the need to destroy people’s belongings in the process.
Also: note to Bloomberg, et al: What does not kill this movement will make it stronger. You just poked a bear with a stick.
(via synecdoche)
