gracchusdixit

Michael Bloomberg has the reputation of being one of the most successful big-city mayors in the country, which is a tough trick to pull off when you run the biggest and least governable city in the land.  Much of this reputation rests on the notion that, because of his immense personal wealth, he is beholden to no one and free to serve all the citizens of New York City without regard for personal gain or special interests.

But Bloomberg just blew that reputation to smithereens, exposing it for what it actually is—a carefully and expensively manufactured sham.  By forcibly ejecting the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators from Zuccotti Park in the dead of night, he revealed his true colors.  He is nothing more than another rich guy (in his case, a very, very rich guy) whose sole interest is to preserve an economic status quo that benefits himself and his cronies on Wall Street.

In a press conference after this sneaky late-night raid, Bloomberg asserted that, in a choice between the First Amendment rights of the demonstrators and “public health and safety,” public health and safety had to come first.  That proposition is ridiculous on its face.

To begin with, no such choice existed, and it wasn’t a choice that had to be made.   Exactly what danger to public health was Bloomberg afraid of?   It was the demonstrators, not the general public, who were sleeping outside in the cold and the rain.  Perhaps there was some litter piling up in Zuccotti Park.  But there’s enough litter on the streets of New York to sink the Titanic.  As to public safety, the only violence sparked by this movement has come from over-zealous police departments, not from the demonstrators, who have been doing a remarkably effective job of policing their own behavior, thank you very much.

And even if Bloomberg’s phony conflict between public hygiene and free speech existed, it is not at all clear why the one should take precedence over the other.  Free speech is the essence of democracy.  Without it, none of the other freedoms we value so much are remotely possible.  It is guaranteed by our Constitution; it is the hallmark of our democracy; it should be protected against all who try to attack it.

It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—a man whose mental and moral stature dwarfs the right-wing pygmies now sitting on the Supreme Court—who articulated the principle that only a “clear and present danger” to the very survival of the nation can justify the suppression of free speech.  Does Michael Bloomberg really believe that the demonstrators in Zuccotti Park constituted a “clear and present danger” to the survival of New York City?  Of course not.

It should now be obvious to everyone what Michael Bloomberg really believes—that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a “clear and present danger” only to Michael Bloomberg and his friends, to the financial and political elites who have for decades been rigging the system to advance and protect their own interests, to the mythology of the free market itself.  As a businessman, Bloomberg made a vast fortune doing the bidding of Wall Street.  As Mayor of New York City, he is still serving the same customer.  By trying to suppress the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, Michael Bloomberg has played right into their hands.  He has demonstrated to the whole world that he is a Mayor for the One Percent, not a Mayor of the Ninety-Nine Percent.