Ed Koch Compares Some OWS Protesters With '60s Anti-Integration Racists

Ed Koch (AP)

There is literally nothing we find more interesting than what current and former NYC mayors think about Occupy Wall Street. Obviously Mayor Bloomberg's bipolar responses to OWS have been well-documented, as he's wavered between damnation for any "class warfare" and respect for free speech. And Rudy Giuliani has made no secret of his hatred for “disgruntled bums” and “leftover hippies from the ’60s and ’70s.” Now, it's Ed Koch's turn to weigh in on OWS: "I’ve concluded the N.Y.P.D. acted superbly and made the people of the City of New York feel proud of the police officers’ professionalism under great provocation."

In an editorial for The Villager, Koch enthusiastically praises how the NYPD handled OWS-protests last week, when hundreds were arrested during the "day of action" after Zuccotti Park was cleaned out by the city. Among other things, he made a highly questionable comparison between reports of protesters shouting at children and the '60s civil rights movement:

One particularly painful scene was that of a group of protesters yelling at children on their way to school. The boys and girls appeared to be 6 to 8 years of age. The protesters appeared to be shouting at the students and frightening them. My memory harkened back to the 1960s when black children seeking to integrate a public school under court orders and were hooted at and frightened by white protesters. It was an awful feeling of déjà vu.

As we noted last week, that CBS report about protesters harassing children essentially amounted to one overhyped isolated incident (in which a father and daughter were captured on video being followed by someone), and flew in the face of the otherwise kid-friendly OWS activities which have been going on for the past two months.

Koch also praised Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly for their leadership and how they handled the eviction, and said other cities should emulate them: "Mayor Bloomberg should be congratulated and praised by every New Yorker for exercising a steady hand in his leadership of the city in dealing with the rights of all concerned involved in Occupy Wall Street. The actions of the mayor and the police officers of the N.Y.P.D. should be seen as a model for other cities similarly situated."

In case you were wondering, the only other living former NYC mayor, David Dinkins, told Daily Intel he thought OWS was "a difficult situation," and generally sounded glad he wasn't the one who had to deal with the ongoing protests. He also declined to critique Bloomberg on how he's been handling OWS: “It is easy, for those of us who do not have the responsibility, to critique negatively, a mayor or governor, or president, for that matter." But of course, you probably weren't really wondering what Dinkins thinks.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Ben Yakas in News on November 25, 2011 2:40 PM

Comments [rss]

chee1rs

Hope and Change strikes out again .... even the Left is turning on Obama and the OWS lowlifes

canofpeas

Ed thinks the NYPD acted superbly. He also thinks Israel's organ harvesting industry a righteous endeavor.

monogato

Occupy Wall Street protests resemble anti-integration riots, in the same way that Ed Koch resembles my sister's My Little Pony collection. Which is to say, not at all.

Abby Kravis

#OWS has lost not only its park but the favor of public opinion. what has made the movement so irritatingly tiresome?
http://littlebiggy.org/4660547

Samantha Nicholson

Uh, it's always been irritatingly tiresome. It's just the public is finally realizing it.

AlbertoinDumbo

Who gives a shit what he thinks?

Adam Moreira

I personally do not see the connection between OWS and 1950s/1960s-era racists. The primary reason why I do not agree is that it appeared to be indiscriminate with respect to race; the protests in the prior era were very targeted with respect to race.

Whether or not it was linked to OWS is ancillary at best in my mind. I look at that and ask: Were they targeted specifically for a reason? The answer appears to be no, and thus the comparison becomes invalid in my mind.

Jereremy

Did someone take away his "Matlock"?

JeremiahToo

The one person even less relevant than Rudia....

Ian MacAllen

Isn't it time for this crazy old man to die of old age already?

isobel.lowther

Amazon Point of view
http://www.amazon.com/City-Sal...

The next best thing is the Berlusconi trial ---- which will become Burlesque-oni! LOL!
http://www.euronews.net/2011/1...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/...

The Sack of Rome http://www.amazon.com/Sack-Rom...

Ed Koch pales in the shadow of Silvio - Ciao Bella!!!!!

isobel.lowther

. . . and http://www.queenstribune.com/a...
and the parking meter scandal. . . it goes on and on!

isobel.lowther

Ed Koch's "liberal with
sanity," administration http://presstv.com/detail/2119...
and http://reason.com/blog/2011/06...

City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York. Jack Newfield, Wayne Barrett.
http://findarticles.com/p/arti...

"Today's reformer is tomorrow's hack," Brooklyn boss Meade Esposito used to say.

Nos Feratu

Here's a fine product produced by one of those giant mega-corporation-persons that Ed could really use just about now.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com...

tjp77

One isolated incident? No.

I live on Wall at Broad, and I can tell you that the 'occupiers' have harassed myself and my two-year-old stepdaughter every time we've had to walk past one of them. Other people in my building have had similar experiences with their children.

Just because it hasn't been caught on tape (and you wish it wasn't true) doesn't mean its not happening.

nomadnewyork

I'm interested. Where exactly are you having to walk past "one" of them on Wall St & Broad if the protesters are on Liberty & Broadway? Are you telling me that a single person is hanging out on Wall & Broad harassing people with their kids? If people are harassing your kid, you should videotape them & press charges.

tjp77

My building is directly across the street from the stock exchange on Broad and has been targeted by protestors since day one. Also, Liberty & Broadway is like two blocks away and part of my neighborhood.

On a couple of occasions cops have witnessed the harassment, but they generally won't do anything about it because they're afraid of starting a riot (their exact words). Our councilwoman (Margaret Chin) pretty much confirmed this when I spoke to her office, and said that cops won't take individual direct action against protestors unless its part of a larger action (like the Zuccoti removal), because every time they touch a protestor the larger group threatens to escalate (read: riot) in response, no matter what the person getting arrested did. So essentially the protestors have impunity to do whatever they want, short of physical assault.

They told me that the best I can do is to let them know every time something happens, so that they can put it in their reports to the mayor and NYPD, and possibly ask for further restrictions when the time comes.

The neighborhood is basically being held hostage. The OWS people are thugs, plain and simple. Unless of course you agree with them and support them, then I'm sure they're wonderfully kind. But if you're not part of their little community, they're nasty, hateful and violent.

nomadnewyork

I can understand that living across the street from the stock exchange would be inconvenient right now. I used to live on 28th & 3rd, across the St from Tonic East. In between the drunken douche bags pissing on the tree in front of the building, the vomit and the fighting and also the homeless pissing and fighting in the street it was really unpleasant.

I'm more concerned with the harassment of kids and hateful violent people. My experience with OWS is completely the opposite, I have never witnessed any behavior like that, nor would I tolerate or condone it.

These nasty, hateful violent people must be exposed. I don't want them in the movement. Videotape them. Prove it. Upload it to Youtube. They will be shunned by the majority of us who are not hateful and who are non-violent. You and your family will not be exposed because it will be anonymous. Go for it dude.

m015094

Sorry, but if you want to use the "We are the 99%" phrase, you get to deal with the part of the 99% that is at OWS for all the wrong reasons. You don't get to cherry pick your supporters because you don't like that some of them are violent asshats.

The other week I was at Zuccotti and there were three separate 9/11 conspiracy groups lecturing and passing out pamphlets and DVD's. Please tell me what that has to do with OWS.

nomadnewyork

You are 100% correct, Zuccotti is a huge free speech zone and there is nobody manning the gate deciding who gets to stand around and spout off their stupid conspiracy theories, hand out pamphlets and talk to people. For some reason, many find the large crowds down there an opportunity. Even the Lubovitch spent a day down there happily talking to people and it had NOTHING TO DO WITH OWS!

Can you explain to me why it is that every time there is a post on Gothamist about OWS somebody like you comes and posts a completely unrelated complaint about OWS on a thread about a completely unrelated subject. In this case, the guy says that his kid is being harassed by violent protesters outside of the Stock Exchange. I haven't even begun on the reasons that this is pretty unlikely. I'm not saying that there aren't assholes that go down to Zuccotti that might go there deliberately to harass rich children because there probably are. I know for a fact that violent asshats are attracted to the movement because they think that they might be welcome there. They are not. There are people who would like to see the movement be violent, but they have other things in mind besides harassing children. The movement remains openly non-violent and it's not something that would be tolerated as a part of the movement in general. One lone guy on wall street does not a movement make.