Saturday, March 24, 2012

Choices

The police kick protesters out of Union Square when nightfall arrives.  They arrest a man for lying down and closing his eyes.  Demonstrators mic check an officer who tells the crowd they will be able to return in the morning, but that lying down in the park - in the daytime too - will not be allowed ...  which sounds, to this blogger, like a blatant violation of the Constitution - in addition to their arrest of the gentleman shutting his eyes - and throwing people out at night.  Union Square, of course, is also a public park - and literally - a public square.  According to wiki, it is under the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.  OWS earlier reported that police also told people they could not have signs in the park. 





By the way, you may have wondered who or what Zuccotti is (it sounds like a pastry!) - as in the private park renamed Liberty Square and now policed by private henchmen.  Well, if you didn't know, John E. Zuccotti is a businessman active in the Republican and Democratic Party (yes I said that as one).  Here is some quickly googled financial information about Mr. Zuccotti's compensations from Brookfield Properties and Wellpoint - the largest managed health company in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Network - and the largest publicly traded health insurance company - just in 2008, and via Forbes.  Wiki reports that in August 2009, Anthem Blue Cross contacted employees and told them to get involved in opposing Congress' plan for health care reform ..

You may or may not recall single payer protesters marching at Occupy Wall Street - culminating at Saint Vincent's Hospital - now closed - leaving no hospitals in Manhattan on the West Side below 57th Street.

I have a question for the police officers in New York City with grown children no longer under their health care plans:  how is their children's and grandchildren's access to health care?  And to officers still raising families - how is it going to be?

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