ople, ranging from those who’d chained themselves together in resistance to 29 year old Ben Hamilton, who said he was simply trying toget away.
In justifying the action, Bloomberg hid behind the issue of public health and safety, which he and his advisers might think sounds good, but which no one on any side of this issue is actually buying. It’s true that Bloomberg is rather notorious for being a clean-freak fussbot, a spoiled rich kid for whom New York City’s storied and stately mayoral abode, Gracie Mansion, just wasn’t good enough. Instead he resides in a 7,500 square foot, beau arts brownstone on the upper East Side. So calling in the troops to facilitate a cleanup of public space actually is in keeping with his persnickety persona.
However, despite his legendary finickiness, this is not a sanitary issue. And his attempt to frame it as such comes off as nothing more than a rather pitiable excuse for City’s Hall’s political actions. This was perhaps predictable, and other statements by the mayor’s office were littered with standard political fare that betrayed the truth.
Bloomberg claimed the raid was done in the middle of the night in part “to minimize disruption to the surrounding neighborhood.” Nonsense. Everyone realizes that the real reason for going in at the wee hours of a weekday night is that the number of occupiers would be minimal, some would be sleeping, and arrests would be easiest.
Bloomberg has also suggested that the problem with the protest is that occupiers have made Zuccotti Park “unavailable to anyone else.” As if this tiny park that no one really cared about before, and which is now the central location in a global protest movement, is 
more important as a spot where someone might sit down to eat lunch unmolested by a drum circle.
And of course, Bloomberg has tried to paint himself as something other than overtly hostile to the protest by saying protestors can return after the park is cleaned, though they cannot stay overnight or bring any camping gear, thereby gutting the protest. Yet such a statement is obviously nothing more than the disingenuous posturing of a billionaire politician whose entire pre-political career was based on Wall Street; it’s the mealy-mouthed prattling of a vain politician who staunchly defends everything the protestors are criticizing.
But the predictable nattering of Michael Bloomberg is not the issue today. Nor are the actions of the police officers who acted at his behest. Rather, the next 24-48 hours are about the protestors.
Occupy Wall Street is hardly the first Occupy movement to face state suppression. Oakland, Atlanta, and countless other smaller Occupies have already endured far worse. But Occupy Wall Street is the founding protest of this global movement, and it is the symbol for all of them, not merely because it was first, but due to its location in the heart of New York City’s financial district. It is at Ground Zero for an economic system that has at once produced the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, but which is also witnessing growing disparities of wealth and poverty not seen since the greatest economic calamity in world history, The Great Depression.
Now that the Bloomberg administration has taken forceful steps to disperse and disband Occupy Wall Street, the question becomes: What will the protestors do next?
The people of Occupy have always maintained that they are not a vertical, top-down organization, but rather a horizontal, grass-roots protest movement. If this is true, then last night’s actions against the Zuccotti Park’s park protestors is meaningless on some level. If this is a real social protest movement, venting the anger and frustration of millions, then the protests will continue in New York City, perhaps with renewed force, as demonstrators quickly regroup and show that they will not be bowed by shows of state force.
As of this instant, there is no way of knowing. Bloomeberg’s strong-armed efforts to destroy Occupy Wall Street might work. But then again, he may have gravely miscalculated and sparked a tinder box.
Either way, I suspect that we are at a major turning point, and that the next day or two will be crucial to see how all of this eventually unfolds.
Stay tuned.