On Oct 28, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> one would expect Quan, a liberal Democrat with professed
> sympathy toward OWS goals, allow the protest to go uninterrupted,
> while Bloomberg, a pro business Republican, use any means necessary
> to quash it. In reality, the opposite happened - the liberal Democrat
> unleashed her police dogs on the protesters at the first opportune
> moment, whereas the pro-business Republican allowed the protest to go
> more or less uninterrupted.
Several things. First, as my radio interviewee this weekend, Alex Vitale, a sociologist who studies cops, points out, it's not true that "liberal" urban Dems are more tolerant of demonstrations than conservatives - they're just as brutal, or even more so. Second, Bloomberg isn't a Republican. He was a Democrat who ran as a Republican because the Dem machine was hostile to outsiders, even billionaires. He has since switched to an independent. On most issues, he's governed indistinguishably from what Dem would have done - with the exception of his environmental and transportation policies, which are remarkably "progressive." And third, Zuccotti Park is legal oddity - a privately owned park, it's nonetheless mandated to be open 24/7, unlike city parks, which close at midnight. So there's no legal grounds to evict. And, as Alex also points out, the Occupiers have attracted too much of a constituency - among both city residents and even elected officials - that a crackdown as brutal as Oakland's would be a disaster. My guess is that they're waiting for weather and boredom to clear out the park - it was 37 last night, and rather wet.
Doug