adminforcefully shut down the occupation of Zuccotti Park in Manhattan early Tuesday.
The police raid was a blatant violation of basic democratic rights, including freedom of speech and assembly. The reasons for clearing out the protesters cited by Bloomberg, and parroted by the media and the entire political establishment, are nothing more than flimsy pretexts. Uncle Sam once again demonstrated his do as I say, not as I do practice that he will not tolerate any opposition to his interests. This is the same country that always condemns alleged clampdown on protesters in other countries, even where rebels armed to the teeth masquerade as protesters.
This is the excuse Uncle Sam used to invade Libya and murder Gaddafi and thousands of innocent Libyans in cold blood. The attack on the Occupy protesters makes clear that the defence of democratic rights is incompatible with the enormous levels of social inequality that sparked the Occupy movement itself. The military-style police action in New York, that involved hundreds of officers, was carefully co-ordinated with similar actions throughout the country. The mayors of major US cities, both Democrats and Republicans, have held meetings and conference calls to work out the best way to strangle the protests.
In the past week alone, police raids have been carried out in Portland, Oregon; Oakland and Berkeley, California; Denver, Colorado; St Louis, Missouri and a number of other cities. Behind the scenes, local administrations were advised by the FBI and Obama’s Department of Homeland Security.
The raids have involved an overwhelming mobilisation of police, decked out in riot gear, employing tear gas and batons – or worse – against unarmed demonstrators. Since the movement began in Manhattan two months ago today, nearly 4 000 people have been arrested. Several of those arrested on Tuesday morning are still being detained and have yet to be charged. Through its own actions, the ruling class is demonstrating to millions of people that the state is not a neutral arbiter. It is their state, staffed by their political representatives. The interests and needs of the majority of the population have absolutely no effect on the course of government policy. These conditions are not unique to the United States. The move to shut down Occupy Wall Street came the same week that
Europe replaced two governments in an effort to more quickly push through massive austerity measures against overwhelming popular opposition.
Mario Monti, a former executive at Goldman Sachs, has been installed in Italy, while Lucas Papademos, a former vice president of the European Central Bank, has been installed in Greece. Meanwhile, the ruling class of Britain has used new “total policing” methods to suppress and intimidate demonstrations by students against tuition hikes. In the United States, the operation has involved all levels of government and both political parties. Many of the mayors ordering the most brutal raids are Democrats.
As for the Obama administration, it has remained virtually silent. On Tuesday, with Obama away in Asia, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney responded to a question about the New York raids by justifying the actions. “Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech,” he said, had to be “balanced” with “the very important need to maintain law and order and health and safety standards, which was obviously a concern in this case.”
The mass media, which functions as little more than a government appendage, has played its assigned role.
The semi-fascistic fulmination of the New York Post and other right-wing publications have been joined by carefully placed articles in the press aimed at justifying the repression. The New York Times on Wednesday editorialised that Bloomberg’s actions were motivated by “legitimate worries” and were “justifiable legally.”
The Occupy demonstrations are an initial expression of popular anger over enormous levels of social inequality. Three years after the economic crisis that began in 2008 – and nearly three years into the Obama administration – the conditions of life for millions of people are increasingly intolerable. The financial aristocracy has dictated policy and now demands unprecedented cuts in social programs.
Hatred of these conditions is broadly felt, and the Occupy protests have won the support of broad sections of the working class. Whatever the attempts by the media and the political establishment to pollute public opinion, mass sentiment is instinctively anti-capitalist and hostile to the giant banks and corporations. A successful struggle against these conditions, however, depends on the independent political mobilisation of the downtrodden. It is not a matter of protesting to the powers that be, but of mobilising for economic rights and the reorganisation of economic life to meet social needs, not private profit.
It requires the nationalisation of the banks and major corporations under the democratic control of the population the path that Zimbabwe has opted to take at considerable cost and that suspended ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has been advocating, again at great risk to his own political future.
The extension of Wall Street in the rest of the developing world are the transnational corporations and other foreign owned companies, that must cede controlling stakes to indigenous people.
Zimbabwe has, once again shown leadership in this regard.
Online Reporter