Just who's being violent here?

Updates from the dead-of-night raid on Zucotti Park:

• 3:36 a.m.Kitchen tent reported teargassed. Police moving in with zip cuffs.


• 3:33 a.m. Bulldozers moving in


• 3:16 a.m. Occupiers linking arms around riot police


• 3:15 a.m. NYPD destroying personal items. Occupiers prevented from leaving with their possessions.


• 3:13 a.m. NYPD deploying sound cannon


• 3:08 a.m. heard on livestream: "they're bringing in the hoses."


• 3:05 a.m. NYPD cutting down trees in Liberty Square


• 2:55 a.m. NYC council-member Ydanis Rodríguez arrested and bleeding from head.


• 2:44 a.m. Defiant occupiers barricaded Liberty Square kitchen


• 2:44 a.m. NYPD destroys OWS Library. 5,000 donated books in dumpster.


• 2:42 a.m. Brooklyn Bridge confirmed closed


• 2:38 a.m. 400-500 marching north to Foley Square


• 2:32 a.m. All subways but R shut down


• 2:29 a.m. Press helicopters evicted from airspace. NYTimes reporter arrested.


• 2:22 a.m. Frontpage coverage from New York Times


• 2:15 a.m. Occupiers who have been dispersed are regrouping at Foley Square


• 2:10 a.m. Press barred from entering Liberty Square


• 2:07 a.m. Pepper spray deployed -- reports of at least one reporter sprayed


• 2:03 a.m. Massive Police Presence at Canal and Broadway


• 1:43 a.m. Helicopters overhead.


• 1:38 a.m. Unconfirmed reports of snipers on rooftops.


• 1:34 a.m. CBS News Helicopter Livestream


• 1:27 a.m. Unconfirmed reports that police are planning to sweep everyone.


• 1:20 a.m. Subway stops are closed.


• 1:20 a.m. Brooklyn bridge is closed.


• 1:20 a.m. Occupiers chanting "This is what a police state looks like."


• 1:20 a.m. Police are in riot gear.


• 1:20 a.m. Police are bringing in bulldozers.

Riot gear? Really? You know what they say about riot gear:



Do Mike Bloomberg and the others who think Americans should just sit down and take the reaming the banks are giving them really think this is going to go away, just because they clear out Zucotti Park and other Occupy sites? Do they really think this genie can be put back into the bottle?

The encampment at Zucotti Park was attempting to make a civilized mini-city, and it was largely working, until the right decided to send the James O'Keefes in their midst to come in and stir things up. Yes, there were bad apples, just as there are in any city....or even any Bible-thumping rural area. But when you consider how Occupy started out, what it created was an astonishing display of people power.

This is not the first time that the REAL jackbooted thugs (not the liberal ones that exist only in right-wing fantasies) have decided to squelch protest. From the hoses turned on people during the civil rights era in the south to National Guard troops gunning down college students in 1971, the bulldog guardians of entrenched power and greed always shut their minds down and do their masters' bidding. But in the end, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Richard Nixon had to, and did, end the war in Vietnam. Unfortunately, movements take time to build and even more time to succeed. Instant communication via YouTube and Twitter has allowed this one to build in a fraction of the time those other movements required. Success will take longer, but with the right minds at work, and the slow awakening of the sleeping beast that has been the American people over the last decade, it can still happen -- with or without Zucotti Park.