Hope Springs Eternal

As I mentioned last night, Matt Yglesias already has gone on record expressing the belief that Bloomberg’s decision to shut down the occupation of Zuccotti Park “has ensured continued relevance for the issue.”  And this does seem to be shaping up as the favored consensus among those working in the Left Blogosphere.

Over at No More Mister Nice Blog Steve M. refers to this phenomenon as “The Dubious New Pundit Meme:  Bloomberg Did Occupy Wall Street a Favor.”  He cites Ezra Klein arguing that Bloomberg’s clearing of the park was done “in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next.”  He also cites Derek Thompson of The Atlantic arguing that “[w]ether or not the protesters return to their tents, New York police have given them a chance to lift up, take stock, and pitch their energies in an issue worth occupying . . . .”

I Just Figured This Out

D’Oh!

On September 17^th, the day Occupy Wall Street was to begin, I wrote a post suggesting that what the country needed was a return to a permanent encampment protest like the Bonus Army’s Hooverville of 1932, in part because it seems clear that with today’s 24/7 news cycle any single large march, rally or protest is easily forgotten and therefore easily ignored.  I figured that in order to command the nation’s attention a semi-permanent protest that lasted for weeks and months was probably needed.  When I wrote the post I was entirely unaware that OWS was arriving on Wall Street, and so I have been secretly congratulating myself for having been somewhat prescient.

Uh . . . I wasn’t.

I wrote that post in response to a statement made the previous day by NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg in which he warned that if something weren’t done to address “unemployment and poverty in the United States” we’d be seeing riots similar to what happened in Cairo and Madrid.  Given that the Occupy Wall Street movement was directly drawing its inspiration from the events in Cairo and Madrid, and that Bloomberg made his statement the day before the occupation was to begin, it is clear that he was already attempting to blunt the movement by predisposing the media to regard it as a “riot.”

So OWS announced that it would be descending on Wall Street on September 17^th, Bloomberg gave a pre-emptive statement on September 16^th, and I responded to that statement the next day . . . which therefore ended up being the day OWS began.  It was a simple chain of cause-and-effect that, because I didn’t know what was going on, I mistook for some mysterious synchronicity.

Damn!  As is usual, the truth is much more rational, but isn’t nearly as much fun.