The big bad protesters go poof in the night

And here is the New York Times story on the clearing out of Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night. Notice how smoothly it all goes, underscoring the point that this could and should have been done five or six weeks ago. It was nothing but the disgusting liberalism of the disgusting New York political establishment that prevented the timely end of this disgusting protest, which, because it wasn’t ended when it should have been ended, triggered similar protests in other cities causing millions of dollars in damages, particularly in Rome and in Oakland, California.

November 15, 2011
As the Police Moved In, the Word Went Out: ‘It’s Happening’
By COLIN MOYNIHAN and COREY KILGANNON

The police began showing up by the hundreds just after midnight. Scores of officers arrived in vehicles that had been staging over by the Brooklyn Bridge but were now at Zuccotti Park. They surrounded the encampment of tents and tarps and booths that the Occupy Wall Street protesters had built and lived in for nearly two months.

The police ringed the park and set up bright klieg lights, and protesters emerged bewildered out of their tents. Some blew whistles, others urged calm and still others warned each other: “It’s happening.”

The police issued their ultimatum through multiple bullhorns: Get out of Zuccotti or get arrested. Some protesters grabbed valuables and slipped away. But others—about 100—resisted. They contracted into their own tight ring in the center of the park and locked elbows. Some even scrounged for thick bicycle locks and chained themselves together.

Police officers wore helmets, and some used plastic shields. About 1 a.m. they entered the park and made quick work of the tent city and tarp-covered bundles and other belongings. They sliced them apart and tossed them all to the sidewalk bordering this square-block space in Lower Manhattan that had become a communal living space for protesters decrying economic inequity.

The belongings were fed into garbage trucks, and police officers using a pickup truck outfitted with a sound device made announcements and turned up the volume, sending piercing noise into the park.

Hundreds of supporters who had heard about the action and arrived at the park were kept away by the police, as were most of the journalists seeking to cover the long-awaited clearing out of Zuccotti.

The holdouts were hunkered down around a canopied structure that served as the mess area for meals: a brown tarp fluttering over a skeleton of white plastic pipes. The moment was here.

For a while there was a lull: no more orders and little movement.

“This is all we have,” said one protester, Jason Lee, “and they are trying to destroy it and take it away from us.”

The protesters’ command center (a booth equipped with laptops) was gone, the drums were gone, the protest signs, the pets—everything but the holdouts.

Police officers had plastic handcuffs. Protesters had gas masks and goggles. There were no more orders now, and the protesters passed cigarettes around, sharing drags. Under the harsh lights, and the sudden hush, the park had an eerie feeling, even while ringed by hundreds of officers and large police vehicles. The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, stood on a ledge and watched it all.

Then the police converged, and the center could not hold. Officers started methodically pulling clenched bodies from the group, one after another, and led the arrested out of park. Most went quietly, walking. Others went limp and were dragged out.A man in a dark suit and a green vest took an American flag from a protester and carefully furled it as the protester was handcuffed. And the arrests continued.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 15, 2011 07:54 AM | Send