New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an announcement this week to the Occupy Wall Street protesters. He said that on Friday at 7:00am, they would have to leave the park so that it could be cleaned, but that they could return afterwards. This prompted many to claim that they were going to be ‘evicted’ and never allowed to return.
So what happened? The OWS protesters got busy! They started to en-mass cleanup the park themselves and said publicly that they would make it very difficult for police to remove them from their protest should it come down to it. At 6:30am this morning, approximately 30 minutes before the police were to start clearing the park for the cleanup, the mayor’s office released a statement saying that the cleanup was postponed.
This is a major victory for the OWS movement. At least for the time being… The announcement did say the cleanup was postponed and not cancelled. Only time will tell if another showdown could possibly happen. My view on a showdown is that it could either be the end of the protests altogether, or it could be, to quote Winston Churchhill, “the end of the beginning.”
What do you think? Was this a major victory for the OWS movement?
