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Occupy protesters were forcefully evicted from McPherson square in Washington DC on Saturday by National Park Police who conducted what they referred to as a “compliance inspection,” ending the movement’s four month-long occupation of the public space. Police confirmed that 11 arrests had been made and stood watch as city sanitation workers in full bio-hazard suits removed and cleared the square of tents, shelters, and other materials left behind by the dispossessed activists. The eviction came eight days after the National Park service announced that it would begin enforcing a no-camping law, and 2 days after a US district judge rejected a request for an injunction by the Occupy movement aimed at blocking the Saturday sweep. Pressure to evict the protesters has been growing from congressional Republicans including California Representative Darrel Issa, who cited alleged public health and safety concerns as arguments for the camp’s removal. The Police action on Saturday was followed by a Sunday inspection of the Capital’s second and smaller Occupy encampment at Freedom Plaza, during which additional tents were removed and one person was arrested. National Park Police have not yet confirmed plans for eviction at the Freedom Plaza site, which is within walking distance of the White House. Occupy activists have expressed their desire to retain a presence in McPherson Square using the space as a forum for continued meetings and protest.

GUEST: Pete Tucker reports at www.TheFightBack.org, a website which covers Washington, D.C.

Debt: The First 5000 Years

From a New York Times Book Review of Debt: The First 5000 Years: “The anthropologist David Graeber has a strong claim to being the house theorist of Occupy Wall Street. A veteran of the antiglobalization uprisings in Seattle and Genoa, he helped orchestrate the first “General Assembly” in New York this summer, and has since become one of the movement’s most outspoken defenders. For him, the encampments in cities across the country prefigure the kind of anti-hierarchical, stateless society that ought to be our future. In a recent opinion article in The Guardian of London, Graeber proclaimed OWS “the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire.” ”

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