Above: Mayor de Blasio speaking at Occupy Wall Street before he was elected mayor of New York City.
The so-called “Occupy Mayor” will be challenged on April 4th when the Worldwide #WaveOfAction is launched in the Manhattan park Occupy made famous, Zuccotti Park, filled with people looking to #ReOccupy
April 4th #WaveOfAction Will Be A Defining Moment For NY City Mayor Bill de Blasio…
NY City Mayor Bill de Blasio won election by using the populist rhetoric of the Occupy Movement. As the former Public Advocate for the City of New York, he rode the momentum of the 99% into office. Mainstream media outlets dubbed him “The Occupy Mayor.” In October of 2011, he even spoke at Zuccotti Park calling Occupy a “heartfelt movement that’s speaking to what people are feeling all over this country.”
However, since being elected he has made some highly suspicious moves in favor the 1%. Right from the start, the DNC’s controversial enforcer Rahm Emanuel advised his transition team. He also selected a Goldman Sachs executive to be Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development. Perhaps most controversial of all, he selected Bill Bratton as NYPD Commissioner.
Bratton is now serving as NYPD Commissioner for the second time. When he previously served, during the Giuliani administration (1994–1996), he was known as an “anti-civil rights enforcer.” His enforcement style was called the “broken windows approach.” Bratton also served as Chief of the LAPD from (2002–2009). During his time in LA, his record indicates a strong preference toward racial profiling. Bratton also has a long history of being supportive of highly controversial “stop-and-frisk” policies.
As Tom Hayden reported on Bratton’s record, “Well over 70 percent of 2008 LAPD stops in inner-city precincts were of African American and Latinos, a ration similar to New York’s. There was a ‘steep increase’ in arrests for minor crimes, known as Part Two [loitering, DUI, disorderly conduct]…” However, in reporting on Bratton’s time in LA, The Nation magazine wrote, “Many in the LA civil liberties community, from the ACLU’s Ramona Ripston to civil rights lawyer Connie Rice, supported Bratton during his stay, perhaps in comparison to Los Angeles’ long history of abusive policing.”
When Bratton was announced as the new NYPD Commissioner, the New York based Gothamist ran an article with this inflammatory headline, “De Blasio’s New NYPD Commissioner Would Have Crushed Occupy Wall Street Like A Cockroach.” In the piece, they revealed that Bratton “told a former New York City official that if he were commissioner during Occupy Wall Street he would have ‘cleared them out right away.’ And during a speech in Manhattan last year, Bratton bluntly stated that ‘You can’t allow people to occupy public space.’”
All that being said, in early November 2011, while criticizing Mayor Bloomberg’s “troubling” policing of Occupy, de Blasio declared this in defense of occupiers, “My bottom line today is that City Hall should stop the saber-rattling and stop the schizophrenia and just make clear that we’re gonna respect their First Amendment rights and let this play out.”
On April 4th, in honor of Martin Luther King’s legacy of nonviolent civil disobedience, the Worldwide #WaveOfAction is being launched in the Manhattan park Occupy made famous. Zuccotti Park will once again be filled with people looking to #ReOccupy. Will de Blasio “respect their First Amendment rights” and let this peaceful campaign “play out.” Will he walk his talk and support the movement that made his election possible, or will he prove to be yet another Two-Party Oligarchy shill? Is Mayor de Blasio a legit supporter of the people, or is he just a Wall Street puppet spouting meaningless propaganda like President Obama?
Show up on April 4 and let’s find out!
Either way, “The People Untied Will Not Be Defeated.” Take heed Mayor de Blasio, this is a legacy defining moment. Which side of history will you be on?
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