Preparing for the dance…

Preparing for the dance…

The 20^th of October felt like it was a about the gradual realisation of the need for unity; an acceptance that our grievances are many, our banners are many, our approaches are many and our participants diverse but action by all, is essential.  There was an obvious shared desire to make a statement about the state of our society and that statement, if it was encapsulated into a single sentence, would probably be something like:

“The current system benefits those who need it least...
...crushing the people and planet that need it most”

Amidst the multi-coloured banners representing unions and workers,  groups with a focus on peace, justice, education, welfare and the disabled as well as clusters of anarchists, socialists, communists, environmentalists, anonymous and too many more ‘ists to list – I found others from Occupy the London Stock Exchange woven throughout.

There we were:
-in and alongside wheelchairs blocking crossings, delaying traffic and raising awareness of the plight of those suffering so unjustly under ATOS. I put my foot on the corner of a street banner that was spread out over the crossing, to hold it in place; three more feet of passers-by appeared within a moment to hold the rest of it in place. Strangers smiling at each other because we know that this problem is a society problem and we are all truly (rather than sound-bitingly) in this together.

There we were:
-some of ours wore black; tapping police shoulders to engage in a game of tag and running through the shops most deserving of attention on Oxford and Regent Street. The target stores were easy to find even for those not aware of the vast sums of tax evasion by their owners or the abuse of the work schemes; the places that are criminal had a police guard, which made this educational and slightly amusing. I approached one of the police outside Starbucks and said how strange it was that they were there to protect the criminals but how convenient it was that they were showing us exactly who on the high streets deserved our attention.

There we were:
-standing with megaphones and informing parts of the march about the environmental issues that are too often ignored and down-played in the media. I personally was on the march both as part of Occupy the London Stock Exchange and as a representative of Residents Action on Fylde Fracking (www.stopfyldefracking.org.uk) and set off from the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral with the Climate groups... although I would have symbolically started there anyway because there is a certain ‘something’ about that place where we camped at the heart of the City of London.

There we were:
-banging drums, blowing whistles, shouting, dancing and chanting with others in Samba bands, big brass bands, a (surreal) Hari Krishna band on wheels and other noise making areas of the march.

The ‘official’ figures are saying something like 150,000 marched but one of the people counting at the gates to Hyde Park had said earlier that she was looking at 300,000+ based on density, depth and length of the crowd that was being counted at various points.

The night before the march I wrote;
“So... what's tomorrow all about? Well, for me it's A kaleidoscopic array proclaiming the sneezes, coughs, wheezes, rashes, tingles, cuts and grazes of society’s weeping ills, gathered in a display of dis-ease on the streets of London; as has been on so many other streets - near and far away on other days.

Symptomatic evidence blitz so loud, so clear, so proud... nothing left to fear the march embarks on an anarchical journey that will twist symptoms, from lines into genome spirals, wound and UN-rivalled into a woven mass of ‘we the people’. A gathering, a blossoming, a holy mother-fck*ing mass of bothering!”

...and it was.

Finding our unity is going to be a bit like getting the choreography right; we start with steps alongside each other before we can get to the bit where we embrace. We ARE many and each has been under the influence of their chosen media, their education, upbringing, race, religion and status in society – trying to fix the things that matter to ALL of us was never going to be a smooth ride with a clear route-map and destination.

Within the mass of people who are ‘Occupy the London Stock Exchange’ we have extremes and differences just like all the other groups and society itself and in those early weeks (I always consider the first 3-5 weeks as golden) we struggled, debated, argued and assembled in order to find the stuff we could agree on. Each time we hit a stumbling-block, a subject too hard to agree, we stepped back, paused, sorted a working group, engaged the different opinions and slowly edged forward from small points of agreement.

It isn’t fast, it isn’t easy and it isn’t even pretty yet – but one day we will have taken enough steps alongside each other to be dancing.

 

#globalNOISE #13O

October 13th 2012 Occupy London will be throwing a street party to mark our one year anniversary. Come outside the London Stock Exchange from 2pm to 5pm and bring music, food, games, colourful banners….PLUS: pots and pans!

We will be joining people all over the world in a #GlobalNoise, a global day of protest to mark that we are still here, one year on, united and more determined then ever. There will be workshops, talks and a chance to meet activists from around the world and hear stories from citizens defending our local communities.

We will then move to a secret location for a two day occupation

The 13th will mark the start of a global week of protest that will lead up to the march on the 20th of October. Follow us as we plan a series of actions to highlight how the 1% are destroying the welfare state, schools and universities, public space and the NHS.

Let’s join Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy in saying:

This is not our crisis - we will not pay

Help us make sure that on October 13th, in every street, in every city and in every country, the world will hear the sound of change.

Let’s make a GlobalNOISE!

#globalNOISE #13O

'Surround Congress' Madrid clashes: Dramatic footage of night violence in Spain - YouTube

Tragic, tragic, tragic... just people, fellow humans finding life impossible to agree with under the governments we have. Police position needs to be addressed - why is halting free-speech so important? Why are governments NOT engaging in diplomatic talks with us rather than hiding behind police? What next for those of us who disagree with our governments but are offered only clones on ballott papers every few years as an alternative? At what stage do law-abiding citizens refuse to acknowledge any more, those laws used against us by those we consider corrupt?

We are simply saying LOUDLY and in our masses, that the system is corrupted by big business and that the health, welfare and rights of the people come second to profits. No justice, no peace...

'Surround Congress' Madrid clashes: Dramatic footage of night violence in Spain - YouTube

On The Soapbox: Symptoms & Disease | The Occupied Times

It’s been a pretty life changing nine months since I took a tent and became a part of the Occupy movement in London. Following eviction I came home to Blackpool in Lancashire and found Cuadrilla (mining company) breezing through with plans for shale gas exploration and exploitation of the Bowland Shale in the region known as The Fylde; a well-populated area of prime agriculture and tourism. It feels like having been a part of tackling the primary cause of society’s illness with others in the Occupy movement, I now find myself with equally determined others, dealing with a symptom; albeit a really urgent one that must be tackled now, before any further harm is allowed to be done both here and in the rest of the UK. 

I sense a futility in easing symptoms, whilst the disease rages on; damaging so many aspects of society and am torn as to how to divide energy and time. It is as if involvement with single-issue (symptom) fights, entangles us in something that is all-consuming and leaves little left for cause-of-disease fighting. I haven’t found a balance or solution; just keep counting on winning the battle against fracking, quickly and cleanly with a sharp slice of truth through the ludicrous PR, marketing and powerful lobbying. 

Protest groups are always with us - whilst enduring solutions remain evasive

I wonder if this is what always happens? Do people act when they recognise a danger/injustice and then get so caught up, they cannot get out and tackle the true cause? Maybe that's why protest groups are always with us and enduring solutions, evasive? The struggle against corporate greed’s unjust control over our governments is fought in pockets of resistance and I see the Occupy Movement as a potential solution; through its ability to unify these pockets and focus attention on the cause rather than the symptoms.

There is though an advantage of being part of Occupy and then going on to join local groups that are so admirably standing their ground. The link between cause and symptom is ever-more clear and sadly, the resulting view, evenr-more ugly. Whether it’s fracking, banking, privatisation of services, LIBOR manipulation, corruption in government, dodgy election results, misleading media, intimidation of whistle-blowers and protesters, wars created for efficiency and profit in energy sector or any of the other clearly insane activities – it is the one disease of system that is at their root.

 Bloodied mothers & raping for resources

Watching the news, I’m bewildered by the tragic, confused faces of children; set against backdrops of war, with bloodied mothers by their sides. 

I don’t recognise landscapes raped for resources - being heralded as a way ‘forward’.  

I’m just plain dumb-struck that none of the bankers, financiers, lobby-loved politicians, lords or CEOs have appeared in court in light of the countless scandals (crimes) they are embroiled in.

But most of all, what I don’t understand are the people; the individuals who fulfil roles in councils, governments, banks, big media and big companies. How do these individuals carry out their soul-less tasks each day; tasks each must be aware, will eventually result in harm to people, harm to planet, harm for the future?

Whether it’s a Councillor, easily bought with promises of power; a politician no longer heeding his electorate and instead feathering his own political nest; one of the cogs in one of the wheels in some part of the financial sector that contributes to the whole that puts governments (and therefore people) in debt; or the CEO who knows the next cut to cost, though it will pay out big, may just involve a bit of risk to the environment, the people living in that environment and the future generations that were rather ‘banking’ (!) on that environment – each and every one of these people is an individual, of the whole that is ‘we the people’.

These granddads and mothers, husbands and aunts, they’re responsible for and to future generations, like the rest of us; yet, I watch their lips move and the sounds come out and I do not recognise them as being ‘people’. They are mouthpieces for whoever pays the money and seem more enslaved by their own lifestyles than those of us who haven’t clamoured up the pole to their level of ‘success’. Yet they seem trapped - too scared to slip down the pole. 

 

That there’s even a pole, disturbs me

They cling tight to their place in the hierarchy, grasp hard at the handhold in the pocket of the guy above and clench buttock cheeks in determination to remain, invisibly chained to the greasy pole marked ‘success’. But what is their success? Measured only in wealth and status perhaps it could rank them high but this measurement would be a slap in the face for fairness and true insight; it is proven (and individually known by the vast majority) that ‘success’ may include money and status but does not require it. Genuine success smells better than money and fits more comfortably than a manufactured status-suit. 

How can they do what they do, when they know (must know), what we all know? How can they tick a box that harms lots of people, places and futures? How can they give the nod to laws that make the future’s uncertainty – certain? How can they contribute to holding us on course, for ever-more unjust, abusive situations?
 

What happens when they go home? What happens when the warmth of family, pets and relaxation covers them? What happens inside their heads after having just said, “My day was fine” to someone who cares that they exist? What happens when they tuck into bed; does the dark truth of their day’s deeds finally hit them?

Originally published:

On The Soapbox: Symptoms & Disease | The Occupied Times

Films For Action Presents: The Top 100 Documentaries Inspiring the Shift to a Sustainable Paradigm

So much of worth, all in one place - highly recommended:


Films For Action Presents: The Top 100 Documentaries Inspiring the Shift to a Sustainable Paradigm

Drilling ‘high risk’ say EU’s scientists - Community - Blackpool Gazette

Drilling ‘high risk’ say EU’s scientists - Community - Blackpool Gazette

9/10

Change the nature of a day
Arc time the other way
Cease the reports
Rewind, retract, contort
The hands on the clock
Make them stop.
Hold the calendar on this page
Let 9/10 forever stay
All ghosts returned
To bodies unburned
All tears un-cried
None survived
A catastrophe that didn’t occur.
9/11’s not a word
We are still innocent
180,000 living souls still ignorant
Of the death that could have come
If some atrocity had been done
On some date not yet happened
That would have led us to attack them
And $437bn would not be allocated
For costs to the "war on terror” related
Instead Make Poverty History
Could have had $375bn maybe
That is needed to clear the debts
Of the world's poorest nations we have yet
To fulfil promises once made
In a once upon a time G8
Ali Abbas would be able to clap
At 12 years old he liked that
Along with the chance to throw a ball
Roll up his sleeves and see all
Of his arms that would no longer be
If the page turns to a day of misery
But on this day that will remain
Orphans unmade by parents sustained
Cindy Sheehan is ironing with a smile
Knowing that Casey will be home in a while
Women at work and kitchen sinks
Have never heard of Code Pink
Petitions unwritten, marches un-walked
Politicians on other subjects talk
People go to work at the towers
The skyline still has an awesome power
Its profile complete, no parts that gape
No holes in sight on familiar landscape
Twins, in tact, in sight, in view
Populated by so many who
Will be going home tonight
Everyday husbands, lovers, wives.
And all our soldiers are in training camps
Or deployed to familiar lands
Not statistics from Iraq
Or gone to Afghanistan without coming back
Our phone calls reach only one set of ears
Our media doesn’t spoon feed us on fear
Just hold on tight for a moment
And a moment more
So that now, can still be
…the day before.

...........................................

Written in 2006