Op-Ed: McGinn Shows His True Colors

The people jailed under Mayor McGinn's orders last night (for "obstructing an officer", which places blame on the Seattle Police, who were following said orders) were protesting against the undue power of money over our politics. Wealthy individuals and large corporations have grown in influence in our society over the last 30 years, and the protesters at Westlake Park have had enough. No one's storming the Winter Palace, no one's even packing heat and threatening "second amendment remedies"- their form of expression is a small, orderly encampment on public property. For that, the Mayor ordered the police to throw some of them in jail, and leave the rest without shelter in the cold rain. And still, they remained overnight.

The Mayor seems to forget that two years ago, there was a different local rallying point against the privilege of the wealthy- the campaign to elect Mike McGinn. McGinn cast himself as a man of the people; a task made ridiculously easy when his opponent, Joe Mallahan, was a multi-millionaire political dilettante who didn't even bother to vote in every election. Not even two years after riding a populist wave to victory, here McGinn is trying to shield the privileged and powerful from a similar one.

Any American who isn't extremely wealthy or a hard-core ideological conservative has been disappointed by promises to address economic inequality and political corruption. There is no shortage of politicians who pay lip service to these concerns, but those who follow through and fight for reform are depressingly few. With some of the people who got him elected lying cold and wet on the concrete at Westlake, or standing before a judge, it looks like Mike McGinn is not one of those few.

Occupy Seattle activists and supporters should be thanking Mayor McGinn for validating their criticisms of our current political system. Here we have a man who won office as a political outsider by mobilizing young people, environmentalists, liberals, and the working class, who is now using his power to silence calls for reform from those very constituencies- what better argument is there that these concerns can no longer be addressed through normal channels?