Sunday, January 01, 2012

Tearing Down the Barricades

Today there is clear limpid sunlight on green grass, winter has only tiptoed through our region, has not yet stomped her big foot down. We had a day of snow in October, do you remember that? But it has been a warm winter, these past few days you haven't even needed a jacket, the last week of December. The year that ended yesterday was one of the hottest in history. I understand we will have some cold days this week, so far it has been like Florida here.

Last night they figured a million people would come out to Times Square to watch the ball drop. Lady Gaga danced with Mayor Bloomberg, people wore funny glasses and took pictures of each other, and kissed. We took a sip of champagne and toasted the new year when the ball came down, then returned our attention to the live feed on the computer, where, in another section of New York City, the crowd at Occupy Wall Street was removing the barricades that had surrounded their park.

Zuccotti Park, in New York City, was cleared of occupiers six weeks ago. After the November 15th eviction of protesters, the police had surrounded the park with steel barricades. These are frame structures about ten feet long, they set them up end to end and it isn't hard to move one out of the way but people generally get the idea, when you see a barricade you walk around it. Maybe there is fresh grass or something. These are psychological barriers as much as anything, they tell people to stay out of the park, even though you could easily step over the barricade or push it out of the way.

This particular park is privately owned. I know, what sense does that make? It used to be called Liberty Plaza and in fact some people still call it that, it was damaged in the 9/11 attack and became the focal point of the #OWS movement. People camped out in the park last year until the NYC cops cleared them out, and then you had this park in lower Manhattan with barricades around it to keep people out. I know, what sense does that make?

Yesterday a lady brought her kids to the park and set up a little tent for them to play in and the police came and made her take it down. Then it is not clear how this happened, but by midnight there were thousands of people there. Everyone was surprised, it was not a planned event, it just happened, New Year's Eve everybody came back to Zuccotti Park. The police of course had to manage the crowd at Times Square and were not prepared for an outbreak at #OWS. They tried to herd people around, sprayed a little pepper spray at them, hit a few of them with the barricades, arrested a couple, but basically there wasn't much they could do. The people took the barricades and dragged them into the middle of the park and stacked them in a big heap and danced on top of them, waving flags and chanting.

You have to laugh at the New York Times' pathetic description of the event. I watched it on a live feed over the Internet, well I turned it off after midnight but there was a guy named Tim walking around with a video camera livestreaming the whole thing. Whatever happened happened, and the whole world could see it, unedited and live. The NYT headline is classic: "Surging Back Into Zuccotti Park, Protesters Are Cleared by Police." That is dramatic, isn't it, those dirty hippies had their love-in and our fine men in uniform restored order.

But the story promised by the headline is not mentioned until the seventeenth paragraph: "Just before 1:30 a.m., security guards and police officers entered the park, where only about 150 people remained."

After everybody left, the stragglers were cleared by police.

The #OWS movement is hard for journalists, because there isn't any easy slogan and no leader. It's just people, fed up with the way things have gone. I saw a sign last night that said something like, "It's just one thing -- Everything." And that makes it hard for newspaper reporters to write about. Especially when everything includes the media.

You have to admit, the barricades were a perfect symbolic target. Here is a park in the middle of lower Manhattan, and some company owns it. People went there to express their opinions, and eventually the mayor had the police remove them. Taxpayer money spent to protect private property, a park that is owned by a company. And then they enforced that by putting barricades around it. It's like something in a Shel Silverstein children's book, the mean, miserly company that had a park and wouldn't let anyone play in it.

So the people came and took the barricades down. They occupied the park for a few hours. The police tried to come in and the people pushed them out again. The police tried to hold the barricades down and the people pulled the structures out of their hands and stacked them up and danced on them.

It's not much of a story in the news this morning. It was nothing, really, a little New Years rowdiness in New York City. Americans accept the idea that authorities can set up "free speech zones" where you are allowed to express your opinions, and they can arrest you if you express your opinion in an unauthorized location. Americans accept the fact that a company owns a park and puts barricades around it to keep people out, and that the police will come with guns and pepper spray and handcuffs, to make sure people don't express their opinions in the park. It was no big deal, nothing compared to Lady Gaga dancing with the mayor.

I hope that this year is better than last year. I have personally been through some things that I really hope will recede gracefully into the laughable past, and we as a country are coming out of times that have been embarrassing and awkward; the USA has been on the wrong side of things and maybe we are turning that around but we have to live out this new year to see how it works out. I think the important thing is for each person to participate actively in your society, to take ownership of your community, your government, your life, and actively work to make these things better. If you don't like the way things are, change them.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It was nothing, really,"

yes, I agree

"Americans accept the idea that authorities can set up "free speech zones" where you are allowed to express your opinions, and they can arrest you if you express your opinion in an unauthorized location"

no, you can express your opinions anywhere

you can't trespass

given Jim's feelings on this, I suppose he wouldn't mind if the Tea Party set up a tent in his back yard and occupied it as a protest against the gay agenda

"Americans accept the fact that a company owns a park and puts barricades around it to keep people out, and that the police will come with guns and pepper spray and handcuffs, to make sure people don't express their opinions in the park"

that's because Americans reject Marxism

property is not theft, regardless of what you might here from the TTFers and Bolshevkis

if you don't want someone on your property, you can throw them off- even if they say they're there to express their opinion

"It was no big deal, nothing compared to Lady Gaga dancing with the mayor"

she's on the right track baby, she was born that way

"I hope that this year is better than last year. I have personally been through some things that I really hope will recede gracefully into the laughable past,"

don't know what you're talking about but best wishes for the new year

"and we as a country are coming out of times that have been embarrassing and awkward;"

that's true we were stupid enough to elect an inexperienced socialist for President and this is the year we fix that

2012: the end of an error

"I think the important thing is for each person to participate actively in your society, to take ownership of your community, your government, your life, and actively work to make these things better. If you don't like the way things are, change them"

unless, of course, you don't like the MCPS sex ed curriculum

expressing your opinion and working to change that is wasting the taxpayer's money

and, for heaven's sake, don't interpret this to mean that should attend a Tea Party rally or vote for Rick Santorum

January 02, 2012 10:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"no, you can express your opinions anywhere "

No you can't.

It looks like somebody forgot about the US citizens in Denver who were forcibly removed from a tax-payer funded public forum to discuss President Bush's plans to privatize social security in 2005. They were removed for wearing anti-Bush tee shirts and having 2 bumper stickers on their car. They had "done nothing to disrupt the forum."

"I suppose he wouldn't mind if the Tea Party set up a tent in his back yard and occupied it as a protest against the gay agenda"

Before it became Zucotti Park, the area was Liberty Plaza Park, a NYC Privately Owned Public Space. Liberty Plaza Park was created in 1968 by US Steel in exchange for a height variance for their building at One Liberty Plaza. After being heavily damaged during 9/11, it became a staging area for the clean up of the destruction in the area. In 2006, Zucotti Park, another NYC Privately Owned Public Space was opened. "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."

Jim's backyard was never designated a public area to be open 24 hours a day to the public like Liberty Plaza Park later renamed Zucotti Park was.

January 02, 2012 3:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

in the opening shot of the 2012 election in Iowa tonight, the gay agenda lost....big-time

January 03, 2012 11:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tell that to President Huckabee!

January 04, 2012 2:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

FYI, here's who *lost big time* in Iowa last night

"After a poor showing in Tuesday night's Iowa caucus, Michele Bachmann announced that she will be ending her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

The conservative congresswoman from Minnesota addressed the decision at a press conference in Des Moines on Wednesday morning. Bachmann, who ran an Iowa-centric campaign, placed sixth in the state's 2012 caucus."

January 04, 2012 3:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

that's a win for pro-family forces because their votes are more focused and not divided

January 04, 2012 3:30 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home