Scotland
in the
heat
Alan Fisher
For all their glitter,
the cities of the world
only touch us as voyeurs
Leonard Quart
I was repelled a while back watching NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg strutting un-selfconsciously like a cartoon plutocrat, dismissive and tone deaf to any criticism of his Wall Street ‘buddies’.
Given his complete identification with ‘big money’, his middle-of-the-night eviction of the OWS protesters from Zuccotti Park was predictable and probably long in planning. But one hopes it will strengthen rather than hurt their cause, since eventually they would have to become more politically defined and hierarchal (despite their antipathy to leadership and top down politics), and would have themselves moved out of the camp’s chaotic and wearying cocoon into the larger world.
The forced eviction may ultimately move them to construct some sort of political agenda, or else the movement, despite its passion and authenticity, will collapse. For there are profound limits to what free-form politics and consensual democracy can ever achieve. Purity of heart, and being on the side of the angels, are never in themselves sufficient to move those who hold power, whatever their ideological leanings. Still, the OWS has succeeded in shifting the political discussion from debt to inequality.
To be fair, the police did not act that night like what the progressive political blog Daily Kos hyperbolically called ‘Bloomberg’s Stormtroopers’. For despite the police’s riot gear, some brutish behavior towards the protesters, and their forcibly keeping the press away, it wasn’t a strikingly violent act of suppression. Especially compared to what has happened in other cities, with more liberal mayors – like Oakland. But the eviction was clearly an abhorrent overreaction by Bloomberg, who felt it imperative to demonstrate his power to undermine an idealistic protest movement that he had bad-mouthed and felt revulsion towards from its inception. I suspect he was exhilarated by the whole operation.
Bloomberg is a politician I dislike – arrogant, autocratic, and filled with contempt for those who are willing to demonstrate against his complacent vision of a society built on vast economic inequalities. (Bloomberg had derisively suggested that the OWS protesters would make a difference by opening a business.) He has always blamed HUD, Fannie Mae, and Congress for our economic collapse, and absolved the financiers and the private sector of any wrongdoing.
Still, nothing in politics is that simple. Bloomberg may not resemble my notion of an ideal mayor, but on the whole, he has been a relatively effective leader of the city. (Though after ruthlessly amending term limits, his third term has seen his reputation for technocratic efficiency and political astuteness tarnished over a series of scandals with contractors, and his hiring and then firing of an unqualified magazine publisher, from his moneyed milieu, Cathleen P Black, as schools’ chancellor.)
He has repaired 750 bridges, provided vast investments for a new water tunnel, built new parks that line the Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan waterfronts, is completing an extension of the No.7 subway line, has been an advocate for comprehensive immigrant law reform and expanded legal services for immigrants, and has been relatively successful in providing affordable housing. In the last few weeks he has announced that Cornell University in collaboration with Israel’s Technicon will create a new science graduate school on Roosevelt Island, in an ambitious bid to spur a boom in New York City’s high-tech sector. Bloomberg’s capacity to think big sometimes bears fruit.
