“My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, ‘If you don’t stop this, we’ll make your life more difficult,’ ” Mr. Bloomberg said. “If those elected officials would spend half as much time trying to promote the city and get jobs to come here, we would go a long ways toward answering the concerns of the protesters.”For those of you who don't know, the park's owners, Brookfield Properties, (yes it's a privately owned park) were planning on cleaning the park this morning, which apparently has become littered with garbage and infested with fleas. The owners however decided to postpone the cleaning operation because of increasing pressure from unnamed city officials...Not to mention the protestors had stated they would not leave the park and would confront the operation head on.
What troubles me is what this quote says and what is true about many large protests. Not only do they disrupt and bring attention to the issue at hand, but they hurt areas of business and politics that the protestors never intended to bring into the situation. Instead of trying to fix the problem, we focus on the protest itself. Instead of figuring out HOW to get the problem solved, we are concerned whether or not the protestors are going to confront a cleaning crew. Instead of working to fix things, we are concerned about what "side" we are on.
It gets to a point when you have to ask yourself, are we causing so much disruption that people can't even focus on the issue we are trying to fix? Are the people involved more invested in the physical image and existence of the protest than what they are protesting? Has the protest, the right to protest and the act of protesting become more important than actually fixing wall street? If any of those answers are "yes", then sadly, I think the movement is already headed for failure.
At what point does the effort to keep the protest going in a safe way become larger than the effort to fix the problem?
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