It was the middle of the night. The billionaire mayor attacked the Wall Street Occupiers. According to one tweet: “Protesters dragged away shoved into trucks, pepper spray, sound cannons, batons, teargas, bulldozers, massive piles of dismantled tents.”
The forces of repression kept out the press. 200 have been arrested.
The police now hold Zuccotti Park, with the Occupiers outside. (As one protester tweeted: “the cops have occupied #Zuccotti Park, we’re just trying to figure out what their demands are …”)
It is unclear what will happen next. But the actions of billionaire Bloomberg highlight the points the Occupiers have been making – society is unequal and the rule of the 1% is undemocratic. It is also brutal and repressive.
The one percent cannot stand any challenge, even a more or less symbolic one like the Occupy movement which doesn’t of itself threaten the productive process.
It however has inspired many and caused them to think about the nature of the society they live in.
The potential for fundamental change is there too, as the movement has begun to link to the working class movement, reaching its apogee in the US in the Oakland general strike and in Australia with the physical support of the Occupiers for the Baiada workers and picket line.
It is this potential which does or could really threaten the one percent. It looks as if the ruling class now wants to smash the movement before it does establish deeper and closer links with trade unions and workers.
Repression is always a dangerous move for the one percent. It can reinvigorate a movement as happened when the cops arrested 700 protesters on Brooklyn Bridge and then when the cops brutally attacked the Oakland Occupation and seriously wounded a young veteran.
The inequality and undemocratic rule of the one percent will not disappear just because police evict the Occupiers. The anger remains. The task for the movement now is to discuss, debate and evaluate the way forward. In the US that will first be the response to the eviction and the battles that arise from that.
It may also involve a process of clarification within the movement itself that the one percent can only be challenged by a powerful force that goes beyond just the act of occupation. The working class has the power to cut off the flow of profits to the one percent and in doing that challenge inequality and the anti-democratic nature of the rule of their rule.
The next few days will be important. As Sherry J Wolf wrote:
Last night’s attack on Occupy Wall Street — in the secrecy of dark, with overwhelming brute force — is symbolic of everything we hate about the 1%. Let’s get as many as we can to come out to the GA today and tonight to mobilize our response, especially the power of labor and students united Nov. 17 for mass direct action.
Here in Australia we too can mobilise against the one percent and their dictatorship.
Barack Obama, the political representative of the American one percent, is talking to our own political class. He will announce closer military ties between Australia’s ruling class and America’s.
Obama is speaking to the politicians of Australia’s one percent on Thursday. That day there is a demonstration against him at Federation Park outside Parliament House in Canberra at lunchtime. Be there to show your support for the Wall Street Occupiers and the protesters around the globe. And for the other members of the Occupy movement across Australia – support the 99% in struggle. Support the QANTAS workers, the Baiada picketers, the maritime workers, the public servants, the nurses, all those fighting for better wages and conditions. That is our future. That is our hope.
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