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Occupy LSX - Eye witness report
After much jazzhands and posturing via steering committees, and much lentil
bake consumed, the protesters at St Pauls Cathedral have finally issued their
demands.
1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic
and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders,
generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with
occupations all over the world.
3 We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis.
4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable.
We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing
corporations instead of the people.
5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the
industries they regulate.
6 We support the strike
on 30 November and the student action on 9 November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare,
education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
7 We want structural change towards authentic global
equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the
planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we
call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this
oppression.
9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!
I visited yesterday to see what all the fuss was about. A couple of hundred
of the usual suspects were there. When you are a political activist you get to
see quite a few of the same people at any protest from fox hunting to ban the
bomb and sure enough, a rich seam of swivel eyed loons, frothing at the mouth
and ranting about chem trails, 9/11 and fluoride in the water seemed
to be the main agenda.
It became clear they had no agenda other than to simply be there in case
anything important happened. It didn’t. Eventually, the self appointed “leader”
decided that everyone should huddle together and make up a list of “demands”. See
above.
No one is more disappointed than me. There seems to be a genuine movement
building to expose the connection between our corrupt politicians and our
corrupt bankers and simply say STOP, something which always has had my full
support. However, much to my dismay, it wasn’t long before I uncovered the
usual piles of Socialist Worker in the recycling bins along with “Stop the Cuts”
and “Hands off our benefits” placards.
I sat down with a few and tried to ascertain why they were there. 50
different people gave 50 different answers, all of them involved protecting
public sector jobs, abolishing student fees and maintaining a massive welfare
state. Oh, and don’t give the banks any more money., And some unicorn tears to
make it all better. You can’t use logic to get people out of a mindset logic
didn’t get them into. Why are you at the Stock Exchange, I asked? We hate
corporations, they answered whilst tweeting on their iPads and sipping a
Starbucks Latte – I was deafened by Irony Klaxons blasting in my ears. Wall
Street companies were bailed out but
the London Stock Exchange has never borrowed money in my name, so why not go to
Parliament or the Banks, where the real cowards and thieves live? “Erm…the
church here has been really nice to us”
Bottom line? These protesters want MORE taxes, an enlarged welfare state, a
bigger Government, State jobs and death to bankers – and a bath. Marx would
have been proud of them. I give them a fortnight at most. The Police have
already removed the portaloos and it can’t be long before Starbucks and Pizza
Express get fed up with toilets blocked by Lentil casserole and organic dysentery.
As much as I hoped people had woken up from the stupor of a decade of Labour benefit
addiction, the OccupyLSX protest is nothing more than a cold turkey sweat of
the terminal welfare junkies.
