Evicted Occupiers on NPR

[altarflame]

I just read an NPR piece that popped up in my facebook feed, about the Occupy Wall Street people getting evicted from the park in NYC. As NPR is somewhere between a non-biased and a very liberal source, depending on the particular writer and the given reader's perspective, I figured it was a safe bet to try to read their description in an effort to relate and understand where the protesters are coming from. From the statuses and videos I was seeing from other facebookers and on tumblr, I was anticipating some serious injustice that would make me angry.

This is the piece, fyi - http://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142333918/wall-street-protesters-ousted-from-zuccotti-park?sc=fb&cc=fp

I'm sorry, though, I just...don't get it. The city's let them be there for 2 months and is just asking them to get out of there long enough to clean the park and then they can come right back. The city has been ignoring groups of local residents and business owners who want the protesters out, even though those residents and owners have just as much right to a say as the protesters do. I understand people are angry about police brutality in the face of a peaceful protest, but what else are police supposed to do when they won't move their damn bodies out of the fucking way until "brute force" is used??

I've never been involved in a protest, let alone an ongoing one, so maybe I'm missing something about how the movement is weakened by taking a break for them to clean the park, but from where I'm sitting it seems pretty plausible that the place is getting gross after two months with no sanitation workers and a serious crowd gathered. Most of the protesters come and go individually ANYWAY. Obviously if the city were saying "this protest is over!!" and people refused to leave, that could be a very powerful thing, send a message, whatever. But standing around getting pepper sprayed and arrested and posting about it, rather than doing something else for one day in cooperation with a city that has totally cooperated with you, and then swooping back in for another couple of months seems...pointless, to me. Theatrical.

Blah.

Note - I may still be feeling irked against protesters in general, in the immediate wake of seeing Penn State people burn things, overturn cars and scream in the streets on camera because someone was fired for protecting a child rapist and it interfered with their football. That is not really similar to what the OWS people are doing on any level, it was just dumbfounding in and of itself.

Comments

[lunachele.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying portapots completely obviate the need for police for any and all purposes. I'm saying if the issue that prompted Bloomberg to send an army down there *last night* was *really* sanitation, as claimed, there were cheaper and more directly relevant ways to address that supposed concern. That's all.

I'm not sure of the legalities as to the park as private/public, I think it is open to debate and suspect if it was as clear cut as you imply, they would have been ousted long ago.

Is a protest not peaceful because some people involved are commiting crimes? People are standing around holding up signs, not throwing rocks at the cops. That's what I'm referring to. I do not deny that there are individual problems there, and individuals who have engaged in violence and those perpetrators could and should have been addressed on an individual basis by NYPD. Arrest rapists and theives and drug dealers. That's legitimate police action. Stealing people's blankets, IMHO, not so much.

I thank you for the respectful dialog, but real life is calling. And I'm sure Tina is sick of all the emails, LOL. Peace.

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure of the legalities as to the park as private/public, I think it is open to debate and suspect if it was as clear cut as you imply, they would have been ousted long ago.

If you want to debate something facts are useful things to have.

[lunachele.livejournal.com]

From your link:
"Because Zuccotti Park is not a publicly owned space, it is not subject to ordinary public park curfew. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on September 28, 2011, that the NYPD could not bar protesters from Zuccotti Park since it is a public plaza that is required to stay open 24 hours a day. "In building this plaza, there was an agreement it be open 24 hours a day," Kelly said. "The owners have put out regulations [about what's allowed in park]. The owners will have to come in and direct people not to do certain things." "

I'm perfectly aware of the fact that the property is technically privately owned, but has been contractually pledged for public use. Which renders it a bit neither fish nor fowl. In the absence of a court decison definitively addressing the issue, there are arguments to be made both ways. That's what I was saying. Presumanly if it were as black and white as you suggest, they would have been removed on day one. But thanks for being just as snide to me here as elsewhere. Done with you.

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm occupying the thread.

[greenfairy8504.livejournal.com]

Being rude and disrespectful just makes you look like an idiot.

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

OMG ARE YOU THE PORTAPOTTY FAIRY?

[aelf.livejournal.com]

OWS participants on the sanitation committee have complained that protestors are seemingly incapable of throwing their own trash away. This was not just an issue of port a pots. There was food, trash, general filth that needed to be cleaned because the protestors were not keeping the space sanitary.

The space was not meant to be camped in. The space is not designated as a camping area, is not prepared or designed to *house* many people. Were this a homeless encampment, it would have been disrupted when it first began.