By Danny Schechter, author of The Crime Of Our Time

Joshua Trujillo/AP
Seattle activist Dorli Rainey, 84, reacts after being hit with pepper spray during an Occupy Seattle protest.

It was strange, after all these weeks, to be on the outside looking in at a new set of occupiers that were there because they have the guns and we don’t.

When Mao said that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” he most assuredly did not have anything like Occupy Wall Street on his mind, but somehow the insight applies.  

The recent attacks on Occupy encampments may have their origins in decisions by federal agencies. It has been reported that the Mayor of Oakland admitted that 16 cities consulted or coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the cities deny it. Activist Van Jones asked on MSNBC why they don’t coordinate on creating programs to satisfy needs expressed by Occupy Wall Street.

Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park had now been power cleaned and was pristine when activists were allowed to reenter without tents or sleeping bags,  More than 200 had been arrested in the takeover that included teargas and selective physical violence against resisters.

The Police operated under the cover the darkness. Press was not allowed despite press cards that permit journalists to operate behind police lines. Even helicopters were banned from the air space over the Park.

Soon, all the tents were  trashed and gone: Medical, Media, The Kitchen and The Library, as well as all the work group locations that I showed in a film I made a week earlier.  To defend the property rights of the owner, the property of protesters was thrown into the garbage.

Now there were cops in command, barricades on the outside and contractors employed by Brookfield Properties, the Park’s owner, on the inside,   looking all corporate and regimented,

Activists with badges calling themselves the “99%” were soon watching the triumph of authority with pains in their hearts from behind the barricades while a dozen TV trucks set up their antennas to broadcast live on this latest confrontation. They were finally allowed back in through checkpoints set up by representatives of the realty company enforcing rules that did not exist  when they moved into the part in mid September.

The tabloid media were gloating earlier in the day, “BEAT IT” was the headline in the Daily News, Rupert; Murdoch’s   NY Post had been tipped in advance and covered the expulsion like a cheerleader.

Earlier in the day, a liberal judge had temporarily ordered the Police to allow the protesters to return to the Park with their stuff, but the case went back to State Court The cops ignored the ruling and by late afternoon had a new one that exonerated their eviction.

CBS reported, “A New York judge has upheld the city’s dismantling of the Occupy Wall Street encampment, saying that the protesters’ first amendment rights don’t entitle them to camp out indefinitely in the plaza.

State judge Michael Stallman   (A liberal who had worked for a liberal City Council member) on Tuesday denied a motion by the demonstrators seeking to be allowed back into the park with their tents and sleeping bags.

CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen reports that the key paragraph in the judge’s ruling is as follows: “Here, movements have not demonstrated that the rules adopted by the owners of the property, concededly after the demonstrations began, are not reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions permitted under the First Amendment.”

“Time, place and manner” restrictions on speech like the demonstrators had petitioned against have a long history in American law, going back at least to the 1960s. It is unlikely that this ruling will be overturned on appeal, if it is appealed at all.

“At the end of the day, if this movement is only tied to Liberty Plaza, we are going to lose. We’re going to lose,” said Sandra Nurse, one of the organizers, referring to another name for the park. “Right now the most important thing is coming together as a body and just reaffirm why we’re here in the first place.”

The predictable verdict by a politically connected Judge reminded me of an old joke that Lenny Bruce often told,   “In the halls of Justice, the only justice is in the Halls.”

The Post reported, “With tensions simmering all day, demonstrators had spent hours surrounding the now-closed park near Wall Street as they waited for the judge’s decision.

Hours after the city forcibly evicted protesters, scrubbed down the park and closed it, Occupy Wall Street protests scattered across downtown Manhattan.”

Earlier in the day protesters thought they had a new space to occupy, a mile away at 6th Avenue and Canal Street on a property owned by Trinity Church, a religious institution with vast holdings in Downtown Manhattan. They called for a new mobilization at the site, an unused playground that is a now site for new construction.

Hundreds showed up with banners but so did the police in riot gear. Soon a “White Shirt” commander named Esposito arrived to take command. He ordered the occupiers off the site. Apparently someone else at Trinity had reneged on the earlier invite, or so it was said.  

Some of the protesters left but at least 16 were swiftly arrested with one set of cops telling us to get off the sidewalks and others to get on them. Some journalists were also taken into custody. One woman in a wheel chair was let go.

Most of the demonstrators left the site and headed back to the Park which, later, let some back in after searching them, They are being told they cannot sleep there.

Clearly there is a new challenge here–to build the movement without a residential base. Two New York churches are now offering out of town demonstrators places to stay and others will no doubt extend hospitality.

Other sites may be found, but their “liberated zone” has been lost for now.

Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO issued a statement calling for more protests on November 17th   when some activists vow to shut Wall Street down. The police action will do doubt incite more support for this international day of action.

His statement seemed unusually militant:

“They can take away the tarps and the tents. But they can’t slow down the Occupy Wall Street movement. The 99% is undaunted. Occupy Wall Street’s message has already created a new day. This movement has created a seismic shift in our national debate–from austerity and cuts to jobs, inequality and our broken economic system.”

So, clearly, despite the loss of power over the Park, this movement will move on. The question remains: where is it moving—and how can bring the large number of Americans who support it along?

When the police were doing their thing, no doubt,   only following orders, demonstrators chanted, “This is What Democracy Looks Like” and “No Riot here, take off your riot gear.” 

News Dissector Danny Schechter covers OWS daily on his News Dissector.com blog. He also writes for Al Jazeera. He made the film Plunder about Wall Street crime and writes regularly for OpEd News.  Schechter is also blogger in chief at Mediachannel.Org  He is the author of PLUNDER: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books) available at Amazon.com. See Newsdisssector.org/store.htm.