BREAKING: THINGS COULD GET UGLY AT THE EPI-CENTER OF OCCUPY WALL STREET

Wall Street Occupiers have been camping out in Zuccotti Park in NYC since September 17.  Things could get ugly in the morning when NYC sanitation and police enter the premises to supposedly clean the park.
photo: Ove Overmyer/The Voice Reporter

New York City--First of all, let get something straight.  This is not a protest-- it is "an occupation."  There is a difference.  The Voice Reporter will comment on that later.

Earlier this evening, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered Occupy Wall Street activists out of Zuccotti Park for a cleanup at sunrise, and his new rules for their return effectively would shut down the occupation, now in its fourth week.  This announcement comes just days after he said the occupiers could stay "indefinitely."

The new rules prohibit tarps, sleeping bags and “lying down”—even as temperatures plummet. Most sources close to the movement say this is nothing but a transparent ploy to stop the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Many occupiers have told media sources that they will have to, "drag us out or arrest us-- we won't go quietly."

MoveOn delivered a petition of 200,000 signatures just a few moments ago to stop the action.  The petition says:

“Mayor Bloomberg: Respect the protesters’ First Amendment rights. Don’t try to evict Occupy Wall Street.”

These demonstrators have inspired an entire grassroots movement. More than 800 Occupy Wall Street protests have spread across the country, including Rochester, N.Y.  Questions abound why the owners of the park and City administration are moving to evict the Wall Street Occupiers.

Inspired by democratic events in the Middle East, Europe and Occupy Wall Street, middle-class folk and working people are turning out with their friends and neighbors in parks, congregations and union halls across America to express their frustration—and anger—about our country’s staggering wealth gap, the lack of work for people who want to work and the corrupting of our politics by business and financial elites.

The Voice Reporter recently spent the better part of a week in NYC and will be publishing a special commentary about this movement in the very near future.  Please stay tuned.