The books of Occupy Wall Street
I do not have time tonight to do justice to the blog entry that I started this morning before an assignment, so I will touch on a a small part of the Occupy Wall Street raid very early this morning – the reported trashing of 5,554 books from the Occupy Wall Street Library into dumpsters/sanitation trucks by New York City police.
Why?
Because BURNING them would be too reminiscent of the German history of anti-intellectualism in the 1930s…?
I put no smiley after that last thought, because I find no humor in the additional display of contempt for knowledge during the repression of Americans and the denial of their Constitutional Rights.
Approximately 200 people were arrested during the police raid, according to the New York Times. At least three professional journalists were detained by police during the raid, and others were kept far from the park, with the imposition of a “media blackout.” As I learned in the spring of 1970 at (The 
) Ohio State University (no, I was not arrested), police hate cameras, except THEIR OWN cameras. If anyone should be screaming about freedom of speech and of the press right now, it should be members of the established media!
During the police raid, Occupy Wall Street librarians tweeted, “NYPD destroying american cultural history, they’re destroying the documents, the books, the artwork of an event in our nation’s history,” Galleycat reports. “Right now, the NYPD are throwing over 5,000 books from our library into a dumpster. Will they burn them? … Call 311 or 212-639-9675 now and ask why Mayor Bloomberg is throwing the 5,554 books from our library into a dumpster.”
The Village Voice has asked the officials of New York City what happened to the library books, but has received no response. Lopi LaRoe, a 47-year-old Brooklyn artist, told a reporter:
“I watched the stuff thrown into sanitation trucks and just crushed”
The willful destruction of books has been viewed by many cultures as an indication of the ignorance of those doing the destruction. At least Americans have learned “what we are dealing with.”
And no, I do not think that the Occupy movement is “going away” anytime soon in response to the recent displays of force…. Hopefully, many of the protestors will occupy voting booths next fall and promote candidates unlike those currently offered by both major political parties.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others like him, have performed an immense public service in education!
In the span of less than one week, the coordinated “crackdown” on Occupy protesters in the United States has re-educated some of the older folks present, who have not seen this kind of thing since the late 1960s, and has awakened and perhaps radicalized entire generations of younger people, who might never have imagined the extents to which the top 1% of income earners will go to maintain their control.
Like throwing over 5,000 books into garbage trucks, and crushing them….
-Bill at
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