By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 6 -- As and after police blocked Wall Street from crowds chanting against bail outs, deploying night sticks and pepper spray, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration appeared more concerned with the rights of those who work on Wall Street.
At a press conference announcing a deal to sell off for $65 or $71 million and eliminate a 42nd Street playground to build a new and some say unnecessary building for the United Nations, Bloomberg intoned, "You’re not going to be allowed to keep other people from moving around. And we’ll enforce the law."
But as at the UN, there were double standards. Two blocks from Wall Street at Cedar and Naussau Streets, police before dusk routinely allowed people in suits and ties through the barricades, with no proof of where they lived or worked, while denying access to and then threatening to arrest others. Inner City Press was threatened with arrest.
Police on horses on Wall Street, Oct 5, 2011, (c) MRLee
Later a squad of police on motorcycles kept back the crowd from Chase Manhattan Plaza. JPMorgan Chase recent gave $4.6 million to the New York Police Foundation, to be used for monitoring software.
Police guard JPM Chase, Fed behind, (c) MRLee
As batons and mace were deployed, Bloomberg and from Washington Barack Obama issued statements not about the protests but the death of Apple Computers founder Steve Jobs. The 11 pm news, at least on CBS, described the police as pleading with protesters -- not to make them beat them? -- and then presented a story about Citigroup raising fees, without any reference to the protest, which was focused on banks. OWS video here.
The banks received billions in bailouts, without virtually nothing required in return. Call it simplistic, but the chant "banks got bailed out, we got sold out" is not without its truth. Those in power appear to hope it will burn itself out, fizzle out, become co-opted. This has been hoped in other capitals this year. Watch this site.
