Outside City Hall, the crowd waited patiently on the sidewalk. A man wearing an Occupy Wall Street button asked politely for a show of hands: “How many of the people here are from the occupation?” he asked. “I’m just trying to get a number.”
Five or six people put up their hands, although they needn’t have bothered. You could have spotted them a mile away. One wore a Che Guevara badge, another a comically oversized British Royal Mail jacket. A third was handing out 9/11 “truth” fliers and claimed to be running for the Senate. They had been standing around talking earnestly about Hugo Chávez and Michael Moore and the “great South American socialist experiment,” whatever that might be. The word “revolution” was thrown around with abandon.
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But on the 19th floor, inside the New York State Assembly room, it became obvious that many in the crowd had been less than honest as to their intentions and provenance. What was supposed to be a meeting of residents of Lower Manhattan had, in the words of one gentleman, “been pretty much occupied as well.” Residents were outnumbered by occupiers three-to-one.
There was an opening statement by a suit-wearing, well-spoken representative of the OWS movement, a statement that demonstrated a level of self-indulgence that would have made a college freshman blush: “I want to represent the desires of the drummers to have their voices heard through their drums, drumming down Wall Street.” Then, some of the members of Community Board One took turns to make brief speeches. With the exception of one woman, who spoke movingly of the Zuccotti Park area having been “under siege” for ten years, each endorsed the OWS movement. “You won’t find many One Percenters in here,” one member joked, to applause. “Welcome to our community,” said his neighbor.
“We support your First Amendment rights” was a common refrain. But nobody bothered to point out that the protesters’ right to protest was not the issue up for discussion; instead, the meeting had been called to “strike a balance” between protester and resident, to read a resolution about OWS passed by the Community Board, and to hear from OWS’s leadership (insofar as it exists) how the protesters planned to make sure that local regulations were respected. “They have to have some parameters,” said member Trisha Joyce, in a rare moment of focus. Given some of the testimony from the few actual residents in the room, one would hope so.
Then came the speeches — one hundred of them in total. Each speaker got one minute, a restriction that was well enforced. Well under half of the people who spoke were local residents. As if nervously aware of this, there were a few comical attempts made by OWSers who have moved in to Zuccotti Park to claim residency by virtue of occupation. One even told me afterwards that, as he spoke for “the 99 percent,” he could make his own rules — that’s “democracy,” you see? A younger resident who used his minute eloquently to complain that his quality of life was being ruined, argued against this conceit well: “What does a ‘good neighbor’ policy actually even mean? My neighbors pay rent and treat my family with respect. They don’t shout at me on my way to work. You are not my neighbors.”
To listen to the tirades of some of those involved with the “occupation,” one would get the impression that the United States was a fascist nation, replete with a police force enamored of brutality. It was clearly lost on these types that they had been invited into a government building in order to be indulged by a sympathetic, democratically elected assembly, and were being afforded the opportunity to justify what is effectively trespassing on private property. There was no mention that the laws that govern New York City parks are being wantonly waived in their favor, nor that various city ordinances are all but being ignored. Judging by the attitude of Community Board One, this is unlikely to change any time soon.
— Charles C. W. Cooke is an editorial associate atNational Review.
Just another travesty. The ONE thing our government should be doing is protecting property rights. The one thing these narcissistic, ungrateful, slugs are refusing to do is protect property rights. Therefore, they have abdicated their responsibility and are negligent. They should all be summarily removed.
Why aren't they after the Hollywood "moguls" and the professional sports people -- they make obscene salaries. Is there a different standard for people who "play" for a living?
I hope this movement just keeps on going - the polls are a turning, and they are turning against the OWSers and thankfully their financial patron - the re-elect Obama campaign. They hopefully will drown together!
For New Yorkers, those self-indulgent, over the hedge liberals - this is just perfect. The result of their beliefs, the cretans of their ideology have now come home to roost, in an area which basically gives NYC it's status and much of its money. All under the noses of a pusillanimous mayor and disturbed, cowardly city managment/ council.
Let 'em stay, let 'em poop in the park, pee on the cars, wear out everything. Then, maybe some of the firms will think of moving folks out, to Jersey or other sites. Staying in NYC is a path of decay.
This will continue on as Mayor Bloomberg is a coward. Plain and simple. More of the OWS need to go up to Park and other areas where NY media and NY Times folks all live. Let them dirty on their doorsteps and leave garbage all over their street.
We are supposed to believe that Bloomberg doesn't discuss the Park with Diana Taylor, his girfriend and member of Bloomfied's board. Bloomberg just lies and lies and refuses to protect NYC's residents. He will not be remembered well.
Sadly winter will likely be the end of this spot of shame for the left.
The arrogance of this group is astounding. Claiming to represent 99% of the population is an insult to the politically diverse... and coincidentally the politically educated.
These same folks who often support the Palestinians now have their very own "Occupied Territory" . How much longer before they demand UN representation...
I'm a resident of the area; in fact, I live directly across the street from the stock exchange, and have been dealing with these nitwits from the beginning.
I had been in touch with both the police and our local city council rep, Margaret Chin, regarding the increasingly unacceptable nature of these 'protests', and the very serious quality of life issues they're causing for the law-abiding, taxpaying, voting residents of the community, particularly after Bloomberg backed down from his promise to clean up the park and disallow the tents and mattresses and kitchens that had been set up.
I was aware of this meeting, however I could not attend due to my work (imagine that!) and therefore could not participate in my local democratic process to the extent that a bunch of unemployable, out of town hippies could.
Irony aside, I am beyond fed up with the entire situation. The neighborhood is a disaster area. Nobody is doing anything about it. Our elected officials are sitting on their hands while a bunch of punks and malcontents roll right over them, time and again. And when the authorities push back even a little bit, its blown up into Kent State redux.
I simply cannot believe that this is being allowed to happen, right in the middle of my neighborhood, where I've lived for over ten years, even before 9/11. I moved here because it was the 'quiet' part of the city, where you could get a good nights sleep, and not have the same Manhattan 24/7 traffic and noise. Now I go to sleep every night to the sound of an obnoxious drum circle and chants of 'WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!' or some other mindless drivel popular with the self-entitled anti establishment types that now reside out my window.
I own my apartment, and paid in the mid seven figures for it. I live well, but I've been working hard since I'm a teenager. My dad pushed a lawnmower for twenty years in order to provide me with good opportunities, and I've tried hard to live up to his work ethic and become successful.
I've never really wanted to live anywhere else, and I've poured a ton of money into this area, buying four apartments in the last decade. But now I have to say that if this is what I have to look forward to in the city, I'm going to pack it up and move. Texas, Wyoming, maybe even the Bahamas. Anywhere. Early retirement.
The people who represent me here clearly do not share my values any longer, and are not acting in the interest of their constituents. It's just not worth it anymore, and I don't want to contribute another dime of my tax money to support it.
If you have a window that opens to the protest spray water on them. Get them good and wet. The best that could happen is they leave. The worst, they might pick up a bar of soap and take a bath!
So you're telling me the Ventura Police didn't beat me and break the law several times to charge me with a crime? (They wanted more bloodsucking pension money and to punish me for crossing a girl named Erin who worked there..they actually brought charges against me in another city and their only reason for investigating it was that the girl who wanted revenge on me worked as a receptionist at their department.. She was pretty so the uneducated boneheads who worked there were fine with nailing a scumbag like me they didn't know and could thus easily demonize. Justice was a joke scumbags like me use to thwart hero cops like them who beat nonviolent scumbags like me to protect the world, which means insuring an environment where their friends can attack you but it's criminal to return the favor. Check it out the FBI is investigating the Ventura police for beating people in the county jail.)
But none of this counts because government councils exist? Do you think there were no government councils in Nazi Germany?
Perhaps you're right but the fact that a government council exists says nothing whatsoever about the level of police brutality.
Boston suffers from the same official indulgence of these scofflaws. They keep trying to compare themselves to the TEA party rallies that are scheduled, come and go, and the local area looks as good or better than it was when they arrived. Of course this is nonsense and the bill for our indulgence is approaching $2 million dollars in water service, electricity and police details to help control the criminal element contained within this childish movement. As former mayor Ray Flynn has offered, "if I was still mayor, I would go down to meet the people, tell them they did a fine job presenting their case and ask them to leave by the next day. Period." Many are predicting the next stage for these tools, violence. Without it they become a mere annoyance, with it they can fall back to the Monty Python formulation, "aha, now you see the violence inherent in the system."
Wall Street, for all its malfeasance, isn't $14 trillion in debt. These protestors are occupying the wrong city.
On another note, the occupiers have collected over $300,000 in donations. That puts them in the "rich" category, defined by Obama as making at least $250K a year. These people better put their money where their mouths are and pony up the substantial taxes they now owe.
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