Mayor Bloomberg to Wall Street protesters: No more Mr. Nice Guy
posted at 4:25 pm on October 21, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Culture ]
Michael Bloomberg had already overstayed his welcome as New York City mayor by tinkering with the election laws to get himself a third term, but now his constituents are really seeing red—and not just when they look at his politics.
“They’re defecating on our doorsteps,” Community Board 1 member Catherine Hughes told the New York Post. Hughes, who lives a block away from Zuccotti Park, was referring to the park’s “inhabitants” of the last five weeks, adding:
The cowbells start at 4 a.m. and the drumming goes past 10 p.m. A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids.
Other area residents told the Post they’ve been insulted and harassed as they walk to work each morning.
Bloomberg can’t run for the mayoralty again, and judging from his recent polls, it’s unlikely New Yorkers would have him. But he still has his legacy to preserve. That may explain why he announced this morning on local talk radio that more arrests are imminent. He spoke of enforcing rules, such as requirements of permits for marches and assemblies.
A separate column in the New York Post quotes OWS media coordinator (OWS has a media coordinator?) Thorin Caristo as essentially threatening Bloomberg back:
The mayor’s statements sound hardline and I have no doubt he may actually try to enforce those. But we all know that every time excessive police force is used in this situation the movement grows exponentially.
Caristo also said of Bloomberg:
His inability to create a clear and definitive opinion or position on OWS just shows he’s being tossed around like a bird in a storm.
In short, Caristo was calling Bloomberg a wimp—an insult he doesn’t need to take. After all, he’s been called a wimp by far better people than Thorin Caristo.
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This might get interesting to see which phone calls Bloomberg listens to in the end…. un-named politicians or every single business owner in New York City who has the power to get up and walk out with their assets and payrolls.
2nd Ammendment Mother on October 21, 2011 at 5:07 PM
bloomberg is like bho, they do their thing with laws that keeps those in line with said laws. Both are in power with union thug money and do not want to plow up snakes. How, oh do we deal with the other citizens getting upset with us? A fine line here with both slugs. It will be fun to see if bloomberg does anything. Almost as much fun as bho denouncing what is happening all over the US with these protests HE backed. Just lip service from both, me thinks.
L
letget on October 21, 2011 at 5:12 PM
If they lose Bloomberg?
tomas on October 21, 2011 at 6:45 PM
I’ll believe Mayor Bloomingidiot will get tough with the OWN vermin when I see it. The National Guard should have been called in on Day One and cleared the deck, by force if necessary.
pdigaudio on October 21, 2011 at 7:26 PM
Why not just get a bunch of neighbors together to “help clean” the park, from 10PM to 6AM for a couple weeks. Every single night.
Run ice cold water out of power washers, with generators for lighting and walky talkies / radios / bull horns for communications.
I think it would be helpful if they used good smelling stuff like “Liquid A$$” or “Barfume” for cleaning agents too…
Just saying, get a little creative people, you don’t need the “government” to do everything for you.
KMC1 on October 21, 2011 at 8:35 PM
Back when it first showed up, Hizzoner thought this li’l OWS sucker was was the cutest thing he’d ever seen!
Now that it’s bawling incessantly and needs its poopy diaper changed, he just wants it to go away.
Sorry, Michael, that’s not how it works.
It’s your baby now & you’re just gonna have to OWN* it.
(*OWN = Obnoxious Wing Nuts)
RedPepper on October 21, 2011 at 9:20 PM
Sorry if this turns out to be a duplicate but I used the R word & it went to the filter a while ago
Actually allowing it to run it’s course has been FAR more beneficial. If they had been run off – especially as you suggest hauled off by force – no one would know what they really are.
There is some perverse romanticism about what this group is doing but everyday they linger there their real agenda is exposed. The Anti-Semites, the Racism, public defecation, public sex, Rape and the attempts to silence the victim, drugs, theft and their random stupidity like the creepy “human Microphone”.
Now the reality is setting in with the protesters too. 2 legs good 4 legs bad. Some protesters are more equal than others- committees are telling them what they can & can’t do. Progressives cannot help themselves, even when they are only among themselves. They must tell others how to live.
Bloomberg & the Dems have to shut this down now because the Mask of Socialism/Communism is slipping. They will shut it down to try to preserve the movement and they probably will do it violently to bolster the cause.
But I hope not. Let it run it’s course – you read about the French Rev0luti0n right? Did you read about the Utopian societies in America – none lasted unless by coercion or force. Let it run it’s natural course so everyone can see the reality of Progressivism in a microcosm
batterup on October 21, 2011 at 9:29 PM
The one thing that has kept Michael Bloomberg’s head above water for the past decade as mayor is: He never gutted the police department reforms implemented by Rudy Giuliani. He’s never been as associated with those reforms as Giuliani was, but he kept his liberal nanny-state tendencies away from taking the police back to the Dinkins years, and that’s in large part why he’s gotten re-elected, because New Yorkers still remember that six-murders-a-day era and feared that the actual mayoral candidates the Democrats have put up against Bloomberg would take the city back to that era.
That’s where the Occupy Wall Street problem is really eating away at Bloomberg’s last solid leg of support. The crime rate in the city already is on an uptick in 2011, and more and more, Bloomberg is seen as tying the hands of the police on handling the OWS crowd, to the point that even the liberal Community Board 1 (the same folks who last year approved the Park 51 mosque) are receiving and implementing complaints to higher ups that the protestors need to be gone soon from downtown.
Combined wirh Bloomberg’s botching of the snow removal last year and the obvious signs that he’s gotten bored with the actual duties of mayor, having New Yorkers start to believe it’s 1990 again and their streets are no longer safe and the mayor no longer cares would make Mayor Mike’s last two years in office a nightmare (albeit given the mindset of your average liberal New Yorker, if the Republicans win the White House and Congress next year, they’ll vote in a hardcore liberal mayor who’ll do the exact opposite of what they want when it comes to public safety, just to send some weird sort of Democratic Party solidarity message to the rest of the country).
jon1979 on October 22, 2011 at 7:16 AM
Bloomberg is an ass. He operates like the mayor of a northern California town. Now that the union thugs and communists are rooted in there, he’s got himself a problem, and he’s compounded it by his threat a week or so ago to “clean the park but not permit camping afterwards”, then backing down. These people will react violently to the nightstick, and the movement blessed by Pelosi, and “understood” by Obama, and backed by other Dems eager to glom onto anything remotely resembling a counter to the tea party will be laid bare for all to see. I predict many a “I was for them before I was against them” moment at the microphone from our liberal friends.
tpitman on October 22, 2011 at 11:09 AM
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Mother nature will have to help out because…
Bloomberg is a consummate wuss. He’s already threatened and backed off. OWS knows he will back off again. And they are right.
Bloomberg is a gutless and toothless very smallish male, as opposed to an authoritative, competent man.
marybel on October 23, 2011 at 6:32 PM