Mayors Who Attempt to End Occupy Protests Are On the Wrong Side of History

From BuzzFlash:

Over the last few days there has been what appears to be a coordinated attempt by many of the nation's mayors to end the Occupy Wall Street protests that have swept the country - and much of the world.

Many justifications have been given: concerns about "sanitation," drug overdoses, the violation of noise ordinances, isolated assaults. But what do you expect? The Occupy encampments involve tens of thousands of people. Those are the kinds of problems that develop when you have groups of thousands of people.

In reality, the Occupy Movement has done a remarkable job coping with these everyday problems of governing large numbers of people in small spaces. In fact, I would bet that the instance of most of these problems in the Occupy encampments is far less prevalent per capita than most places in America.

Of course, there are sanitation issues that have to be addressed - ever see the National Mall after a forth of July fireworks festival? That's the nature of large crowds - so work with the Occupy groups to solve them. But don't use "sanitation" as a pretense to try to end this important movement.

The bottom line is that the Occupy protests are disruptive. That's the idea. That's the idea of any serious protest movement: to be disruptive - to stop business as usual - to force the media and the society at large to focus on a critical, fundamental problem.

More here.

"So work with the Occupy groups to solve them."

That's what these mayors around the country could have done, but didn't. Instead, they sent in the goons. It has been ever thus. As the above linked essay observes, it's only after social movements accomplish their goals that we truly see such heavy-handed government action for what it actually is, oppression. And save your pathetic law and order lectures for some corn-fed American icon idiot who'll believe you: this is democracy, which outranks zoning laws and business concerns every fucking time. Democracy is who we are. That governmental entities from sea to shining sea have actively avoided finding ways to facilitate what is now obviously a broadly based people's movement designed to bring us closer to the national ideals taught to all school children year after year makes plain just how far removed our society has become from those ideals.

Indeed, we're starting to look more like the Occupied Territories of Palestine than the Norman Rockwell paintings we think we look like. And that bodes very, very ill.


Unarmed, peaceful OWS protester gets pepper sprayed in the face by
Portland cops (photo courtesy of the Atlantic).


Unarmed, peaceful Palestinian protesters thrown to the ground by Israeli
soldiers in 2010 (photo courtesy of Gaza Carnage Resources).

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