What kind of nonsense is going on at Occupy London?
Old Fart | 09.12.2011 15:15 | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements
Yes, what kind of nonsense is going on at Occupy London? Meeting with UBS and The FSA? Hanging out with The Guardian?
In the US the Occupy movement has been assaulted violently by cops and the local state from pillar to post and subject to vicious intimidation and eviction. In response they continue to re-occupy central locations and to spread the actions to point of immediate conflict such as the ambitious West Coast Port Shutdown on Dec 12th and the amazing 50 city strong re-occupation of foreclosed homes on Dec 6th. They might call this 'sticking it to the man!'.
http://westcoastportshutdown.org/
http://occupywallst.org/article/americans-re-occupy-their-homes/
In London it seems the point of interest is to meet with bankers and hang out with other total waste of spaces such as Polly Toynbee so as to appear fair and well-balanced and engaging with all sections of the political class. And to jolly up to The Guardian too.
http://occupylsx.org/?p=2204
This is truly depressing shit, my friends. It's hardly a new form of politics. It's the same old class ridden politics of the UK for the last 300 years - liberal, sensible, reforming, balanced all the while the class war continues unabated with no concern for such niceties as fair play, a nice chat and a handshake. Austerity is class war. It takes from those who have the least because that's the current way the capitalist class can make it's money, the profits of finance being so fucked up now.
Occupy London G.A can agree a statement that on the one hand calls for banks to be reformed and then further down notes that the problems of inequality are systemic. Yes, that's right, the global financial institutions and government are the system that creates the poverty and violence of capitalism. How do you reform this?
Certainly not by meeting folks from UBS, the FSA, the corporate media and having a nice chat. What a luxury! Maybe the starving masses of Haiti should convene a nice reconciliation meeting between the 5 ruling families of Haiti and the corporate business and themselves and see what is possible.
Here was a good response from the folks of Bhopal to Dow Chemicals and the London Olympics:
http://vastminority.blogspot.com/2011/12/indian-protesters-block-trains-and.html
Maybe they should all sit around a table instead?
http://westcoastportshutdown.org/ http://occupywallst.org/article/americans-re-occupy-their-homes/ In London it seems the point of interest is to meet with bankers and hang out with other total waste of spaces such as Polly Toynbee so as to appear fair and well-balanced and engaging with all sections of the political class. And to jolly up to The Guardian too.
http://occupylsx.org/?p=2204 This is truly depressing shit, my friends. It's hardly a new form of politics. It's the same old class ridden politics of the UK for the last 300 years - liberal, sensible, reforming, balanced all the while the class war continues unabated with no concern for such niceties as fair play, a nice chat and a handshake. Austerity is class war. It takes from those who have the least because that's the current way the capitalist class can make it's money, the profits of finance being so fucked up now.
Occupy London G.A can agree a statement that on the one hand calls for banks to be reformed and then further down notes that the problems of inequality are systemic. Yes, that's right, the global financial institutions and government are the system that creates the poverty and violence of capitalism. How do you reform this?
Certainly not by meeting folks from UBS, the FSA, the corporate media and having a nice chat. What a luxury! Maybe the starving masses of Haiti should convene a nice reconciliation meeting between the 5 ruling families of Haiti and the corporate business and themselves and see what is possible.
Here was a good response from the folks of Bhopal to Dow Chemicals and the London Olympics:
http://vastminority.blogspot.com/2011/12/indian-protesters-block-trains-and.html Maybe they should all sit around a table instead?
Old Fart
Comments
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not that i wanted to say i told them so, but
09.12.2011 15:23
me, thats who
But someone is doing all that infrastructural work..
09.12.2011 16:15
The recent loose alliances with some of the Sparks protests has been about the only positive recognition of the wider class struggle and only good can come from such a cross-contamination. That the Sparks and others really are blocking the economy of these mega building projects is much more meaningful and well thought out than Days of Action that only really appeal to direct action types who like standing in front of banks and chain stores asking the rich bosses to be nice and play fair and 'pay your tax' andf getting in the papers for popular appeal. Block the economy in recognition of your own economy and how more fucked up it's gonna get if the bosses succeed in undermining your long hard won pay and conditions.
MR
Not just the liberals
10.12.2011 07:22
Petit skunk
meanwhile
10.12.2011 08:54
none.
his mum, one friend of his, and a couple of people from the court support crew (gbc & ldmg) were the only folk there in solidarity with him.
this really sums it up for me.
sally
Baudrillardian Theme Park Protest
10.12.2011 11:14
Like the happy campers on Bishopsgate on G20 who had no interest in supporting those kettled outside Bank ( bourgeois good protestor / bad protester jokers) and who it was argued to that the cop tactic would be to go in heavy later on ( as they did ) - and who were supported, when this did happen, by many of those anarchists who had been at Bank, some of whom took a fair pasting for them.
simulacrum
never OVER estimate the police
10.12.2011 12:22
its not my revolution but i never believed in revolution anyway as it means to turn in a circle (and end up where you started from ie egypt) so erm
hmmm
yes there probably is infiltration happening, but still we must not get too carried away with that and give them too much credit, i have been infiltrated and i know what its like, and i have to say it isnt as if they are all mighty and all consuming, the undercovers are a bit hopeless i think and not as clever as all that. this cosy style of protest seems to get a lot of attention, maybe it takes away from other things..... hmmmm not sure
i have been at occupy bristol a lot and have witnessed the space being used both positively and negatively.
it is a safe place for homeless people..... which is not ideal for the serious protestors..... but then thats life and those people matter and for there to be a safe haven for them is a very good thing
endurance camping is not the answer though is it?
jr hartley
Stand aside.
10.12.2011 14:57
1. Attempts to derail the subject matter into a 'personality' assault against some individual or other.
2. Attempts to sow disunity within the movement by inferring lack of solidarity within a movement.
3. Attempts to turn the primary debate into something it is not (i.e 'occupation' into 'revolution')
4. Endless attempts to infere that a movement is state driven by undercover agents and that those involved are not to be trusted by newcomers.
All in all, a weak and feeble attempt to destablise the occupation movement by 'individuals' pretending to be people 'in the know' but who have no affiliation with the occupy movement at all.
Weak, feeble and pathetic.
As a member of the occupy movement and one of its primary architects I have no problem with helping the homeless. I am happy to step in to help them out if the state does not possess the tools, competence or will to do what it is paid to do. I am happy to help here. Politicians don't care because it makes them look 'weak' to the wider public. Politicains don't want to appear to be weak, they want to appear to be strong. That is the only way they can command the respect and fear of the public. Without that fear, they can no longer govern and that means they have to get a job...which obviously means giving up their freedom.
Social justice and common equity is not an available option to Parliament because its need to maintain power by any and all means available precludes its ability to confront the economy of homelessness. Twas ever the way.
Helping the homeless is a natural thing to do. As opposed to spitting at them, which is the natural thing for morons and the TV watching, tabloid newspaper reading cretinati in the cities to do. They only do this because they don't know any better. They don't know any better because they are adequately happy with the daily tripe served to them by the elite and their teeth whitened, fake tanned, TV cronies.
The occupy movement is a sitting movement that must not be interfered with. Any interference will simply bring forward a more lethal alternative.
The clue to this movement's 'desirability' is in the phrase...we are the 99%.
You want that.
Abandon that and you are left with a terminally lethal 1% alternative.
You don't want that.
'Occupy' is your freind.
anonymous.
UBS
10.12.2011 15:48
SUB
@anonymous
10.12.2011 16:30
Sean Daleer
@ anonymous
10.12.2011 17:19
friends go to court when we are risking prison, friends show solidarity, they don't let a person get sent down all alone...
i notice you don't deny what you did to tom, you just avoid it altogether. why is that? why didn't any of you support him on wednesday?
what value is there in a "movement" which fails to support the people who are part of it? who leaves them alone to face judges and prison guards?
seriously.
i don't want to read or hear anymore about you lot until you start demonstrating some real solidarity. until you do i will continue to raise this issue every time i read any words from you. tom deserves an apology. the rest of us need reassurance that such a fuck-up will never again happen.
sally
Just a quick comment aimed at anonymous.
10.12.2011 18:23
I am happy to step in to help them out if the state does not possess the tools, competence or will to do what it is paid to do
The occupy movement is a sitting movement that must not be interfered with.
You don't want that."
Says it all!
Ordinary working man
What kind of nonsense indeed?!
10.12.2011 19:15
It's good that the piss poor response to the arrest and court appearance of Tom has been mentioned, and as Sally says, remains unexplained.
"anonymous', you fall at your own first hurdle, and then go on to criticise voices who challenge policy and practice within the movement, which for a movement supposedly based on dialogue and consensus is very revealing. And aren't the people who 'who have no affiliation with the occupy movement at all' the kind of people mentioned in the original post that OLSX has been chummying up to, not those of us who question the direction of the movement?
And this is a major problem. Anyone a singing a different tune to the main drone of the herd gets slapped by members of the herd. I came across a post which raised a serious issue, that of infiltration. (
I must confess that my faith in the movement is being seriously tested.
In solidarity,
Dan
Dan
but some are more equal than others
10.12.2011 23:38
anonony
not just
11.12.2011 01:56
they are apparently too busy with their celeb friends, doing soma workshops and "theatre of the oppressed" to actually get down to court and support one of their own facing (and getting) a prison sentence.
i don't think it's down to the tavistock or any other brainwashing that may or may not be going on at the occupations though - i think they were raised this way. privileged people protect their own. even while posing as "alternative".
sally
Seems the usual middle-class bashing going on
11.12.2011 11:39
fuck off
Theres more middle-class than working-class, and if you don't the fact that i was born middle-class then fuck off because that wasnt my decision. you might as well complain about me being white.
if the working class dont like it, go and do your own thing
anon
anon and on and on and on
11.12.2011 12:42
Every time we do you middle-class tossers come and try to hi-jack it.
nona
more working class than middle class
11.12.2011 13:01
Not by the usual definitions of the term there isn't. Although class boundaries are a lot less clear than they were 100 years ago, most people still make a living by selling their labour, even if it is in a comfy office rather than down a mine or on a farm. Having a mortgage, a university education, a car or a foreign holiday doesn't make you middle class these days, even if it did in the past..
And when did Indymedia turn into a Facebook style bitch-fest? If people have got problems about how things are done, or have personal issues with people, sort them out internally. Plastering stuff over the public internet is a bad idea for so many reasons. You are doing the work of the state infiltrators and the mainstream media to destabilise the movement, even if you don't realise it.
anon2
public/private
11.12.2011 13:19
sally
Sad.
11.12.2011 14:00
"i don't want to read or hear anymore about you lot until you start demonstrating some real solidarity. until you do i will continue to raise this issue every time i read any words from you. tom deserves an apology. the rest of us need reassurance that such a fuck-up will never again happen."
"I must confess that my faith in the movement is being seriously tested."
"It sounds from a few of these comments like some of the occupy group might consider themselves slightly more equal than those of the 99% who are not present at the occupy site. Maybe they feel a bit special and important? Or maybe they've been participating in the Tavistock Institute's dream workshops?? A brief look at the credentials of this institute: nazi's, Rothschild, royal family, brainwashing, psychological war fare and group manipulation thro the unconscious mind. Wow. Sign me up and I'll organise the next meeting with the merchant bankers!!!"
"i don't think it's down to the tavistock or any other brainwashing that may or may not be going on at the occupations though - i think they were raised this way. privileged people protect their own. even while posing as "alternative".
Hmmmm.
You couldn't hope to read a more malevolant collection of pointless and aimless whining.
Nobody in the Occupy movement sounds like this in real life. These comments all sound like Conservative Party members trying to clear up after their inglorious defeat in the EU/USA currency war!!!
Never mind chums...you can't win em all.
anonymous
or perhaps
11.12.2011 14:36
should be
"Nobody in the Occupy movement bubble thinks they sound like this in real life"
because they're too busy having polite conversations with bankers, clerics and businessmen or attending exclusive parties with $45m entertainers?
"The Occupy movement is an opportunity for the middle class to protest the “unfairness” of their proletarianization. In part thanks to widespread disillusionment with political representatives, previously non-activist citizens are suddenly eager to participate in an activist social movement. Paradoxically, the brightest hope we can find in this situation is also the grimmest fact: the increasingly dire economic situation is not turning around, and life will not go back to the way it once was. It is precisely because the movement for a preservation of the illusory American dream is doomed to fail that the Occupy movement has the potential to supersede itself."
It seems to be a discussion worth having, RIGHT NOW!
ftp