Republican and independent-minded Presidental Candidate Buddy Roemer issued the following statement earlier today in response to the latest actions by Mayor Bloomberg:
"The Mayor of New York City is standing on the wrong side of history. His actions in the midnight hours against the Occupy Wall Street protestors are unjust, uncalled for, and unconstitutional. The First Amendment right of assembly and speech exists to protect America from this kind of government power abuse.
His actions will be a stain on America's long history of peaceful assembly. I encourage Mayor Bloomberg to read a history book on America and he will see from the Civil Rights marches to the Vietnam protests, our young Americans have stood up to injustice and in the end were right in their actions.
Was there no common ground to maintain health and safety while allowing for assembly, protestations, and debate? And to raid the assembly in the wee hours is so typical of abuse and cowardice.
These young people of Occupy Wall Street have my total support. I have walked among them and listened. I support, with my actions, their contention that something smells of corruption in America when the few who give large sums of money to politicians receive special favors in return, while the average citizen is foreclosed-on and forgotten. They are asking questions about injustice, and special-interest control, and institutional corruption that need to be asked, that must be asked in a nation headed in the wrong direction.
The actions of the City today have confirmed the young peoples' worst fears about the establishment: they will not listen. After all, the establishment is safely protected in the tower of the top one percent. The rest of America has no such bailout protection, and should be outraged by the midnight raid on the Constitution and on the young with the courage to speak in public what so many feel in private.
Some of us may disagree on the solutions proposed by these young people, but I totally support their right to assemble and to speak freely about their concerns. I do not believe we need bigger government; we need better government, fairer government, honest government, and non-corrupt government.
The young people ought not to be thrown in jail. They should be listened to. Shame on Mayor Bloomberg."